Introduction to paper:

About the book and author: “In the 1930s Remarque's books were banned in Germany by the government. All Quiet on the Western Front was among the works consigned to be publicly burnt in 1933 by the Nazis. Stores were ordered to stop selling his books. The film's premiere was disrupted by Nazi gangs; Remarque was accused of pacifism. In 1938 Remarque lost his citizenship, and he left Germany. He moved to Switzerland and later to the United States. There he made friends with Hollywood stars, including Paulette Goddard (1911-1990), whom he remarried in 1958. Remarque had been married twice before, and to the same woman, Ilsa Jeanne Zamboul, in 1923 and again in 1938. After the war Remarque settled eventually back in Switzerland. He died in Locarno, on September 25, 1970. “[1]

I. Summary of Contents

The book All Quiet on the Western Front is a book, which gave me insight in to what W.W.I was truly like. Through the observations of Paul Bäumer, a 19-year-old volunteer to the German army during “The Great War”, readers taste war in all its horror. Bäumer and his twenty classmates charge fresh out of high school into military service, persuaded by parents, who would think them “cowards” if they did not go. Their teacher Kantorek, and other one-track-minded adults who are unable to foresee or unwilling to consider the hell into which they are sending their "Iron Youth." To head strait into war and not telling them how it changes these innocent boys into hard cold men. The everyday reality and horror of trench warfare, and being cold, hungry to the point of starvation and eventually there untimely cruel deaths. The main point of this book is that it rejects the patriotism behind war, It is better not to die at all than to die for one’s country.

War soon transforms Paul and his fellow friends into "old folk" and "wild beasts." For these school boys, there is no thrill of victory, or Glory in dying, only the reality of one death after another. To look to the future brings them no hope; they have no careers, no use for their education, no romance, no life beyond the battlefield. What lies before them is "the abyss."

War strips away the dreams and hopes these boy-men once valued. Their respect for authority is destroyed by their disillusionment with the schoolteacher Kantorek who pressed them into this glorious service--a laughingstock when forced to join himself--and is shattered by the contemptible tactics their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline. Even their belief in the sanctity of human life must be compromised every time they kill; this is best illustrated by Paul's journey from anguish to rationalization of his dispatch of Gerard Duval, the printer turned enemy who leaps into the shell-hole already occupied by Paul.

War destroys these men--even those who survive the bombings, the bullets and bayonets. Yet unless their bodies are annihilated by physical attacks or their sanity is blown up by the weight of one too many cruelties, while in the hospital Kropp who had custom boots who lost his leg and Paul’s friends wanted to take them before the nurses took them. Some soldiers manage to maintain vestiges of humanness: their caring for animals (Deterring, the farmer turned warrior, rails against the army for its "vilest baseness" in exposing innocent horses to slaughter; the group shares its once-in-a-wartime feast with a little gray cat); compassion for each other (Bäumer, little more than a child himself, comforts a terrified, crying recruit and literally covers his behind); their sense of fun (Bäumer and Kropp ride high atop a tuck on a canopied, four-poster bed; the Second Company risks their lives amid a shower of explosives for two roast pigs and a platter of potato pancakes); a flair for the romantic (ailing soldiers band together to allow Lewandowski, his wife, and child an intimate reunion in the infirmary); defiance of the near-inevitability of an ugly death (Peter, young and lung-damaged, triumphs over the spectral aura of the Dying Room).

Their hope in a seemingly hopeless situation attests to the endurance of the human spirit. That ghost of a chance that they would return home someday inspires them to think and fight like murderous automatons, to thump along on bleeding stumps where feet used to be until they could reach relative safety from a barrage.

But as the war wears on and the western battlefront soaks up the blood of Kemmerich, then Haie Westhus, then Muller, Paul's hope ebbs. His trip home on leave wets his appetite for family life, civilian clothes, and a civilian job and at the same time torments him with the knowledge that should he succeed at fighting his way back home he can no more fit into the life he led at peacetime than he can fit into his old dress suit.

After the deaths or dismemberment of his classmates, other comrades, and finally his most cherished fired Katczinsky, Paul speaks of being "broken, burnt out, rootless." When, on the eve of the resolution of World War I, Paul's own end arrives, the expression on his corpse indicates that he has welcomed it.

II. My Opinion of the Authors Style--

The author Erich Maria Remarque wrote in the first person style, I think that it was very appropriate, however at first It was hard to understand what was going on. I think the author left a lot of things unsaid on purpose. He used a lot of details, some of which was just too real for me. At point the author made me get up and go to the refrig To get something to eat. At other times I lost my appetite with the graphic descriptions “We see men living with there skulls blown open, we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole…”(91) The cries from the soldiers who are left on the battle field to die is one that will eat at anyone’s heart. Time also seems to go slow in this book, making it all too real.

III. What I liked and disliked about the book—

I liked the fact that it was from a German perceptive, that it raised some good questions as to the point “The Glory of war” what does that mean? it made me think about authority and how they influence young people, Kantorek was almost Hitler like in his speech to get these boys to volunteer for service. I liked the details in the book, there was at times very graphic scenes. The book made you have empathy towards Paul and just how much it changed him, It is one of my favorite books, It took me a long time to read it just because it took so many emotions out of me.

Some of the things I did not like about the book was in the beginning, it was a bit confusing as to who everyone was, I first thought it was a group of Americans, also at times it was hard to follow where they were at? Were they on the front lines, or the reserve lines. In the end there was no real conclusion. It just ended saying he had died and not how. Was he shot, did he die from the gas? Was he on his fourteen day leave? I think it would have been nicer if he had lived and went back…at least there could have been another novel written about what its like to live after a war. I was upset when Kat died, and he carried him back to the hospital and they told him he was dead. It kind of gave a grim feeling for the doctors and how cold and hard to death they must of grown. Over all I liked the book although it did play on my emotions a lot and had to put the book down many times.

IV. Would you recommend this book to someone else in the class

Yes I would recommend this book to someone else in the class, I would recommend it to every high school student, to every college student, to every one in the armed services this book is full of stuff that they just don’t tell you about war. Now maybe if this reader was back in history before TV and the dullness of death it causes It would of made a bigger impact, but I would definitely recommend this book to everyone who wants to know what trench warfare was like, was war is like.

In conclusion, All Quiet on the western front is a wonderful book over all . It shatters the belief that war is glorious, it is messy and can destroy a person even if that person lives on afterwards. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to feel what it was like from a German perceptive during the great war.