Inga Chilingaryan
Mrs. McGrath
English 10 Honors/Humanities, Period 1
3 December 2018
Self-Guided Reading Questions: All Quiet on the Western Front
I chose Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front instead of any of the other options presented to me because around the time this book was assigned, I was interested in learning about both World Wars. My best friend is a year older than me and since she already learned about the World Wars, she would always inform me of the facts that intrigued her the most, and this is how I began to want to learn about this time period more. Before coming to class and choosing the book, I also did a little research on each book, and I didn’t have as much interest in reading The Joy Luck Club and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
All Quiet on the Western Front displays the traumatic experiences of German soldiers during WWI and how it drains them physically and mentally. Barbara W. Tuchman was an American historian who won a Pulitzer Prize for the novel The Guns of August based on World War I. Her novel is quite a bit longer than Remarque’s, and the aspect of it differs from his as it is strictly historical and doesn’t involve the perspective of a specific soldier throughout the book. This work mostly reminds me of the time in sixth grade when we would read historical articles and novels about the causes of the second World War and the Holocaust.
The purpose of Remarque when writing this novel was to inform regular citizens and people who lead normal lives (compared to the soldiers) of the physical and mental torment the soldiers endured. Throughout the novel, he describes how others will never understand his life and the way everything positive and good has been drained from it. Another reason he may have written this book was to show the world that war is not a legitimate answer to problems between nations and is unnecessary, as there are other, nonviolent ways to solve those problems.
This novel includes multiple themes such as the effect of war on a soldier and patriotism. Overall, the message of the author to his audience is to show that fighting in war is definitely not an easy task and has extreme, horrifying effects on a person’s mental health. Paul Bäumer, German soldier and protagonist of the novel, expresses his feelings about the negatives of war by saying, “Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more” (Remarque 295). Bäumer wants to show that all life and energy has been completely drained from his body and his mind, and nothing worse can possibly happen to him at this point. Patriotism is also a major theme throughout the novel and it’s vital because it is the main reason as to why Bäumer and his group of friends are in the army. Kantorek, their schoolmaster had an extreme love for his country and talked Bäumer and his friends into voluntarily fighting in the war (Remarque 11). Once they started their depressing journey as soldiers, they realized how wrong their decision to listen to Kantorek was and the whole novel goes on to explain the bad experiences accompanied by war.
This novel is based on Remarque’s own experiences when he fought in World War I, and it is evident that his position on the issue of war is that he is completely against it. Once again, the book in its entirety explains the negative effects of war on Paul Bäumer, the protagonist, but he actually expresses his specific thoughts on being anti-war when he agrees with his friend, Alfred Kropp, who says that a war should be fought and solved by the “ministers and generals” of the opposing countries and they can “have it [fight] amongst themselves” (Remarque 41). This, in turn, would result in less casualties of the innocent people fighting.
There may not be a specific group of people Remarque wants to reach because the novel seems to be directed towards everyone, why they should learn about the terrors of war, and to inform people who don’t have any clue as to how war is like. It may possibly be directed towards people who are pro-war, however, as Remarque is anti-war. By explaining how much the war has affected and crushed him and his soul, he shows his stance against war. He might also want to bring people who are pro-war to the realization of just exactly how horribly their actions and opinions result on innocent people.
The tone of Remarque throughout the novel is usually negative and displays how passionate he is on the subject of being anti-war. The content can be graphic at times when, for instance, Remarque uses strong imagery to explain the horrific injuries of some of his comrades. The language is strong and effective to show just how difficult the lives of the soldiers were. The author’s tone is usually negative as he feels as though his life and mental state will never improve.
The novel is written in first-person, and Paul Bäumer is the narrator. Remarque based the novel on his own experiences from fighting on the front line as a German soldier and comes to the conclusion that war heavily affects a person mentally. The author is not biased because he is only describing the effects of the war on soldiers, and he never degrades the Allies or anyone from the opposing side. He mentions that love for one’s own country’s is important, but he does not demonize the enemy: In the epigraph of the novel, Remarque states, “This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession…It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”
The entire novel supports the fact that war only results in negative effects on one who fights in the war because of the traumatic experiences they go through. The theme of Remarque’s novel includes the horrifying effects of war, and he mentions multiple times throughout the novel how much the war affects Bäumer: “We became soldiers with eagerness and enthusiasm, but they have done everything to knock that out of us.” This supports that the author is strictly against war because he feels as though his life has been taken away from him and he will never mentally recover.
The structure of the book includes elements such as imagery, chronological order, and how it’s written as a narrative. The more graphic parts of the novel are easy to visualize because of how strongly Remarque utilizes imagery to describe injuries of the other soldiers. The book is also in chronological order, beginning from a time where the front was relatively peaceful, and ending with the protagonist’s death. Remarque’s novel is written as a narrative, the narrator being German soldier Paul Bäumer. From his perspective, fighting on the front and multiple other situations with his comrades are shown well because of the in-depth descriptions and imagery. The novel is also written in present tense. These elements definitely impacted my understanding of the content because everything was clearly explained with the utilization of the above-mentioned elements. There were definitely words throughout the novel that I needed to look up to comprehend the content more because they were mostly war/weapon-related terms that I wasn’t familiar with. There was also some advanced vocabulary that I didn’t know the meanings of beforehand. Other than that, the plot was easy to understand and Remarque did a good job by utilizing different structural elements well.
The author’s writing style included elements such as writing in chronological order, writing from one perspective only, and using present tense that impacted my understanding and enjoyment of the novel. The novel being written in chronological order really helped me understand what happened after each other because there were multiple scenarios where the soldiers were fighting on the front at different times throughout the book. Other novels, such as The Joy Luck Club, utilize multiple perspectives throughout the book to show the different stories and backgrounds of the characters. Since All Quiet on the Western Front was only written from one soldier’s perspective, I didn’t have trouble remembering what happened because there weren’t in-depth stories of the other characters. I also understood the idea and importance of the theme because the writing was so heavily stressed on the difficult situation of one person only. Reading Bäumer’s story in present tense, however, was something I wasn't used to because I usually read novels in past tense. It took a while to get used to the novel being written in present tense.
Erich Maria Remarque does have credibility to write a narrative about the horrible effects of war on a person because he enlisted and fought in World War I at the age of 18. The book’s narrator is a German soldier named Paul Bäumer, and his stories are based on Remarque’s own experiences and thoughts as a soldier. Therefore, it is a primary source to prove the common soldier's mentality towards war.
The plot is organized by chronological order and comparing and contrasting. The entire plot starts and follows the pattern of events from when the soldiers are behind the front and relieved from fighting, all the way to a little before the death of Bäumer. Occasionally, the protagonist remembers other events from his life before enlisting in the war, but the novel usually follows a straight pattern of the war events he experiences. Bäumer also compares his life fighting at war with his former life as a regular teenager when he mentions, “On the walls are pinned countless pictures that I once used to cut out of newspapers. In between are drawings and postcards that have pleased me… I used to live in this room before I was a soldier… If I am lucky, when the war is over and I come back here for good” (Remarque 170-171). The reader immediately comprehends the difference between his current, traumatic life on the front and his former, peaceful life at home before losing his innocence and youth. From time to time, Remarque also asks multiple rhetorical questions throughout the novel that reveal his inner thoughts and get the reader thinking. For instance, he is talking to his mother the last evening that he is on leave at home, and he gets sad because he doesn’t want to leave her again. He asks himself why he cannot be a child anymore, why his childhood has to be over that quickly, and why he always has to be so strong (Remarque 183). The reader understands that he really is too young to be at war and is heavily affected by the fact that he always needs to be fighting and going through difficult situations, as war has taken over his life.
In Chapter 7 of the the novel, Bäumer and his friend Alfred Kropp find a poster of a beautiful girl on an old army theater near the place where they are settled and off-duty. They are both discussing her beauty and elegance, and they talk of competing for her if they had better clothes than their dirty war uniforms. The light and positive mood of the conversation immediately changes, however, when Tjaden and Leer come over and speak of the poster in a vulgar manner (Remarque 143). This seemed to lower the innocence and grace of the simple conversation they were having about romance that they will not get to experience during the war. Remarque could have ended the section without bringing Tjaden and Leer into the conversation, and the reading would have been more positive and elegant.
Three quotations from the test:
“But then I feel the lips of the little brunette and press myself against them, my eyes close, I want it all to fall from me, war and terror and grossness, in order to awaken young and happy; I think of the picture of the girl on the poster and, for a moment, believe that my life depends on winning her. And if I press ever deeper into the arms that embrace me, perhaps a miracle may happen….” (Remarque 150) Bäumer is completely destroyed by the war and does not have hope for anything good to happen to him. This section is important because it shows that there was at least one tiny moment in the overall depressing novel that warmed the soldier’s heart a little. When he kisses one of the French girls him and his friends met while swimming one day, just for a little bit, he feels as though happiness can be pursued and reached.
“I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.” (Remarque 295)
This distressing quotation is one of the strongest ones in the novel because it concludes that all the combined horrors of the war have resulted in Bäumer feeling this way. He feels that his life has been taken away from him entirely and he cannot do anything to gain any more hope that his life may improve in the slightest manner. Unfortunately, being in the war has taken any possible positivity from Bäumer’s mind. This may also depict the way the author felt after being in the war because it takes a lot for one to explain deep feelings like the ones Bäumer felt.
“He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.” (Remarque 296)
This quotation comes from the very end of the novel after Paul Bäumer finishes telling his story, and it is not narrated by Bäumer, the protagonist, anymore. It is not made clear who the narrator is at this point, but this section was vital. It shows that Bäumer was merely one of many who were killed in the war and displays his death as just another one of the deaths that occured, not valuing the importance of him and his upsetting story. It also mentions that he seemed at ease and happy that his difficult life had passed, which further proves that the war had destroyed him heavily.
All Quiet on the Western Front is an educationally valuable novel. By portraying the effects of it on humans, it teaches why war should be avoided at all costs. Some may disagree that it is a valuable book, however, such as the Nazi Party. Remarque’s novel was published in 1928 after he tried hard to get someone to publish it for two years. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were trying to spread the idea that war is necessary for their country to thrive and Remarque’s novel did just the opposite of that. This was not what the Nazis needed in any way. They wanted to portray their soldiers as strong and fearless, but the novel showed the reality of them and how they are negatively affected by the war. Some even stated the book exaggerated the war and displayed the soldiers as weak and scared, when it actually accurately portrayed their life on the battlefront. Remarque became a victim of censorship because the Nazi Party then proceeded to burn his novel All Quiet on the Western Front. This novel depicts life during and after battling in war well and people can learn the negative effects of war by reading it.
List of important characters:
Paul Bäumer; “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow.”; major character; round character; dynamic character;
Stanislaus Katczinsky; “…the leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil, blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather, good food, and soft jobs.”; major character; flat character; static character
Alfred Kropp; “…the clearest thinker among us…”; major character; flat character; static character
Müller; “ ‘Albert, what would you do if it were suddenly peace-time again?’ ”; major character; flat character; static character
Tjaden; “Tjaden is a cheerful soul. There aren't any worries for him.” (after he had been rude to Himmelstoss when Himmelstoss showed up to fight on the front); major character; flat character; static character
Kantorek; “…he used to glare at us through his spectacles and say in a moving voice: ‘Won’t you join up, Comrades?’ ”; major character; flat character; static character
Corporal Himmelstoss; “He had the reputation of being the strictest disciplinarian in the camp, and was proud of it.”; minor character; flat character; static character
Gérard Duval; “I have killed the printer, Gérard Duval. I must be a printer, I think confusedly, be a printer, printer-”;major character; flat character; static character
I could not personally connect with any of the characters, especially Bäumer. I’ve never experienced what a soldier does in war and I probably never will, so I can’t relate to the hardships the soldiers in the novel go through. However, I can empathize with Bäumer and completely understand where he’s coming from when he describes how sad his life has become because I too have felt sad and lonely at times, (this is in no way comparing my reasons to being sad with his; I understand he is a soldier and I am just a girl living a normal life) and the way he describes his despair makes it easy for me to understand. This didn’t affect my reading much because going into the book, I knew that it was from a soldier’s perspective and didn’t expect to relate to him anyways.
The significant characters are all mostly motivated to survive. Survival isn’t a main theme throughout the novel, but there is no specific motivation that the characters have. They are really all just trying to live. The protagonist is motivated to survive as well, as he discusses that his life has been taken from him and now all he needs to do is try to physically survive. Towards the end of the novel, however, he kills a French soldier in order to survive and immediately feels terrible about it. He talks to the French man’s dead body and promises that everything he does will be done for him and his family (Remarque 225). During this emotional scene, Bäumer is motivated to do everything for the man he killed from the enemy’s side because he doesn’t see him as an enemy. I can’t relate to the motivation the soldiers have to survive because as much as I try to be careful in life and to not get hurt, the main concept on my mind isn’t directed towards surviving. This is because I do not have a dangerous and risky life like the soldiers in Remarque’s novel.
In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, the protagonist, Paul Bäumer, explores the psyche of the common soldier after experiencing the trauma of war.