Analysis Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is the greatest war novel of all time. This is not true because it is a cliche story about a war hero who saves many lives, but rather because it illustrates the true horrors of war and its effects on the soldiers. This book demonstrates the bloody and dehumanizing effect that was has on a soldier such as Paul Bäumer. Paul Bäumer is the protagonist in this novel, a nineteen-year-old boy who enlists in the army with his school mates at the encouragement of his schoolteacher, Kantorek. Throughout the war, his mates die off one by one, with Paul eventually coming to the realization that war is not glorious, as his schoolteachers had said, but rather pointless and horrible. In the novel, Remarque
These boys were essentially tricked into fighting a pointless war by their supposed role models in their countries. Their teachers in school, those who were supposed teach them how to be mature and how to become world citizens, instead manipulated them into becoming soldiers. Remarque demonstrates this manipulation, as he writes, “During drill-time Kantorek gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went, under his shepherding, to the District Commandant and volunteered” (Remarque 11). Kantorek, the schoolteacher of Paul and his mates, had spread the lie that war was a glorious and fun adventure where the boys could become men. The language of the shepherd demonstrates how Kantorek pushed the boys to join, despite how they may have felt, as if they were a herd of thoughtless animals. The boys are further manipulated by Kantorek, as he writes to them saying that they are the “Iron Youth,” (18). Kantorek calling the boys the “Iron Youth” shows how he makes them feel invincible as to the point that they would fight valiantly for their country. In saying that these boys are made of iron, it implies that they are protected physically from anything, a stark contrast from the reality; they are made of flesh. Once in the war, the boys begin to see how they had been deceived, as Paul thinks, “We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from the true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left” (13). Paul acknowledges that he feels a nationalist pride towards Germany, and that he went into conflict wholeheartedly, however he had realized that war was not the great and fun right of passage that their schoolteachers had told them about. Paul understands that nothing of their lies existed on the front, as the war tore