Review: All Quiet On The Western Front

The Horrors of War on the Front In “All Quiet on the Western Front” Erich Maria Remarque a German veteran describes the harsh events that happened in WWI. The main character Paul Baumer narrates his story of what happened on the Western Front. Paul and several friends decided to join the army right out of high school at the young age of 19. In the beginning, Paul and his comrades were excited to join the army because they had been given speeches about patriotism, in time they realized that war was not what they thought. The horrors of war became their reality, from the constant losses of comrades to the filthy living conditions in the trenches, they realized any moment could be their last. Paul describes how war changes a person, even after trying to suppress their emotions, the shock they suffered was real. Remarque uses setting, characterization, and Imagery to show how war took the lives of
Not much was known of Remarque’s actual experience in the war, he was said to have served on the front and had a few injuries. Remarque wrote All Quiet in a short six weeks, the book sold 640,000 copies in only three months. The critic response was both positive and negative. It was considered ‘The greatest of all war novels’ and like a ‘war diary’. The novel was also defined as propaganda and an insult to the German army. Never less, Remarque’s main assertion was to show how damaging the war was on the young men and how they never truly escaped its horrors. Nigel Hunts reflected “The war has fully taken over for the young men there is no future other than the war because there are no memories of adulthood from before the war” (pg. 3). Those young boys who became men during war would never see anything beyond it, and would begin to forget everything before