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All Quiet on the Western Front
In this scene, Paul is riding in a train car with two bunk beds. His friend Albert Kropp is put on the lower bunk, and Paul takes the top. At first he is amazed, to the point of not wanting to get...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is an anti-war novel, and this quote, near the end of the novel, sums up the problem with warfare. It is spoken by Paul Bäumer, the novel's narrator and protagonist,...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
While there is a spareness to much of Eric Maria Remarque's style of writing, at times it is almost impressionistic; Remarque's narrative touch is direct and sensitive both. CHAPTER 10 The chapter...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In World War I, the earth is extremely significant for soldiers; for, they live in the trenches, they fight from the trenches, they crawl on the earth when they must move out of the trenches. The...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
During the course of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, Paul Bäumer becomes disillusioned with the patriotic messages that had supported the war. He worries about the actual status and mental...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In my opinion, the author has Paul die because that helps him to make his point about the effects of war. As we have seen in Paul's thoughts, he feels that the war will destroy his whole...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is full of such events, and Paul, the narrator, frequently refers to the war in these ways. Perhaps the one event that embodies all of these aspects of war is Paul's...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is a realistic account of one German soldier's experiences in World War I. Most of the novel is painfully realistic, as it addresses the horrors of war....
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All Quiet on the Western Front
For about the first half of the novel, Corporal Himmelstoss exercises considerable control over the young recruits’s lives. A sadist, he enjoys making them suffer more than he actually tries to...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel of soldiers in the First World War, All Quiet on the Western Front, the importance of food cannot be overstated. In describing the preoccupation of soldiers...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Although the war is near its end, Germany continues to fight even though there is no hope of winning. The men feel as though they are prisoners sentenced to death; they fight at the front, then...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In chapter one of All Quiet on the Western Front the writer, Erich Maria Remarque, describes the camaraderie of war in a unique way. “. . . we have learned better than to be shy about such...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
A great deal of what Remarque was writing about was the battle of the men on the front, particularly Paul's battle amidst the destruction, the horror and the inhumanity of the war. In this regard,...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul prefaces his narrative of war with the deluded appeal of Kantorek to his students to enlist, Kantorek would say that we stood on the threshold of life. And so it would seem. We had as yet...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Several authors (Hemingway, Sassoon, Owen) of Remarque's era reflect the mantra of "The Lost Generation." The carnage of the first world war was staggering. Germany lost over 7 million people....
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Kantorek is the schoolmaster whose inflammatory speech stirred such patriotism in his students that all (but one) joyfully volunteer to fight "for the Fatherland." Kantorek is a small man with a...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul has a difficult time remembering the past because of the contrast between the calm in the memories and the chaos of war. On the front, there is always noise. In their memories only, there is...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
The original question had to be edited down. I would suggest that Paul's statement reflects the condition of being that he has come to accept as part of his being in war. There is a note of...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Schoolmaster Kantorek refers to his former students as "the Iron Youth". Paul Baumer and Albert Kropp scoff at the term because it is so ironic. Kantorek speaks of them as if they are glorious...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Though of course it is just my opinion, Remarque was commenting on the futility and the utterly back-breaking sadness of a war and its ability to destroy an entire generation of youth from, in this...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In Chapter 1 of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer describes his friends from school with whom he enlisted and the soldiers whom he met in the Second Company. Paul selects one...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Kemmerich is crying in the second chapter because he knows he is dying. After being wounded in the war, he is in a hospital bed whilst the narrator speaks to him and tries to cheer him up. However,...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In this part of Chapter 6, the narrator talks about ways in which new recruits get killed because they do not know what they are doing. He mentions one reason right after the quote you provide us,...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
I think that what can be done here is to express how Paul's emotional experience can be universally appreciated. Certainly, few could say that they "get" what Paul is talking about. His...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
For a quote, what about the part where Paul goes to see Kemmerich's mother. She wants to know how her son died. She is really anxious that she should know the truth. But Paul can't understand...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In Chapter 2, Paul remarks that "we stood on the threshold of life." There is a level of excitement and exuberance that Paul and the recruits feel about the war. It is for this reason that...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Having lost his youthful innocence and joie de vivre after being in war, Paul feels alienated from his family when he returns home on furlough. Upon his return to the front, Paul finds himself...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul refuses to be "put under" because he fears that the surgeon will amputate his injured leg. In Chapter 10 of All Quiet on the Western Front, after having three weeks of good food and relaxation...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
The narrator of the Erich Maria Remarque World War I novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, is German infantryman Paul Baumer, who tells his tales of battlefield horror mixed with peaceful respites...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
After Paul fatally wounds the French soldier in the shell hole, he begins to realize that the soldier is just a man like him. Throughout the novel, Paul has been saying that the war has robbed him...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul is surprised at the intensity of Kemmerich's mother's grief because his own senses have been completely dulled by his experiences in the war. He has seen killing, in all its horrifying...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
November 11, 1918 is Armistice Day, the day Allied powers signed a cease-fire agreement with Germany, effectively ending World War I. The date is significant to the book because it comes too late...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
I found a few more literary devices in Chapter Eleven of this fantastic novel. The second paragraph begins with the metaphor "Our thoughts are clay,..." and then goes on to explain, "...they are...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
The most telling influence on Erich Maria Remarque's writing of All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) is Remarque's experiences in World War I. Like many who lived through the horrors of the First...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul's room represents to him the "Life of (his) Youth." When he comes home on leave, he sits in his room, waiting for his old life "who are care-free, beautiful," to take him up again, but...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In the graveyard scene, human life before and after death are juxtaposed, and, with chilling clarity, it is shown that there is very little distance between the two. Paul's regiment is caught in a...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Sure, it is possible that Himmelstoss was really harsh on the men so that he could inspire a sense of brotherhood in them. One could argue that Himmelstoss wanted the men to learn how to rely on...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
As the novel opens, Paul Baumer is young and impressionable, easily swayed by the rhetoric of his school-master. After the first battle, Paul realizes that those in authority may not have all the...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
While the young men are in the equivalent of basic training under Corporal Himmelstoss, they find him unfair and even cruel. "He is known as the toughest disciplinarian in the camp, but he pushes...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In relating Paul's experience with the French girl, the author is tying to show the romance and innocence that is still a part of Paul's nature. In contrast to Leer, who is "an old hand at the...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul despises Corporal Himmelstoss, who had "the reputation of being the strictest disciplinarian in the camp, and was proud of it". In Paul's words, Himmelstoss was a "small undersized fellow"...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Having been in combat in the trenches, and having experienced the deprivations and horrors of warfare, Paul and his company are sent to a field depot where they can be re-organized and given...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
After the horrors of battle, Paul and the other soldiers become ...insensible dead men who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and kill. As he stands on sentry, the...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
I think a strong argument can be made that the lice in Chapter 5 are indeed symbolic of the men involved in war. Paul notes that "killing each separate louse is a tedious business when a man has...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque uses the narrative voice of Paul Baumer to challenge the romantic notion of war and patriotism. This critical view can be seen clearly when Paul leaves...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
The students joined the army because their teachers and the rest of their town were romantic believers in the glory of war. They filled the boys heads with patriotic songs and pictures of victories...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
In Chapter 5, Paul and his comrades discuss aspects of life from the perspective of the western front. Things here are very different from how they were during their training. The avenues of...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Caught in a bloody and seemingly unending offensive after waiting in anticipation and boredom for many days, Paul describes the state of being that characterizes the fighting man in battle...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul and his company are initially sent back to the front on wiring duty. They must put up wire to mark their territory and keep the enemy soldiers from invading their trenches. After the job is...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul articulates the condition of young men sent to the front in World War I. Paul sees his generation, a young one, as comprising the vast majority of soldiers sent towards military action in the...
