All Quiet on Western Front A Pacifist View on World War I
All Quiet on The Western Front, a pacifist view on world War One.
Erich Maria Remarque wrote "All Quiet On The western Front". The book focuses on the hardships of soldiers fighting on the Western Front in France in World War One in order to show that war was futile. The book is written in first person and it is written from a German's point of view because the author, Remarque, was a German. It is a story of comradeship, of young soldiers fresh from school enrolling in the German army.
I thought the book was excellent as a portrayal of how hard it was to be a soldier in World War One, how Baumer, the narrator of this book, and his friends had to grow up so quickly. It was very sad when his friends died one by one and he finally died as well at the end of the book. In this study I am going to look at the relationships between the characters, the main character him-self, and the themes present in this novel.
The main character in this book is the narrator, Paul Baumer. Paul Baumer comes from a small town in Germany. After school his classmates and he signed up for the War. They did not have much choice; they would have been conscripted anyway. Baumer has become resigned to the war. Although at the start he probably thought the war glamorous he soon realises that the only thing keeping him sane was thinking about the end of the war. Paul shows great courage in the face of death; in a very short time he has grown up a lot and does things he would not have done before the war. He is always ready to help new recruits, to give them tips on how to survive on the front. For instance,
"Close by us there is a recruit, a blonde lad, and he is terrified. He has pressed his face into his hands. His helmet has rolled off. I reach for it and try to put it on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet away and huddles in under my arm like a child, his head against my chest. His narrow shoulders are shaking, shoulders just like Kemmerich had. I let him stay there. But to get some use out of his helmet I shove it over his backside, not as some kind of a joke,...