“All Quiet On The Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque is a novel about a young German Paul Balmer and his classmates who head off into WW1 with no idea what they are in for. We see these young men turn into animals from their experiences the theme that shows these experiences is “The Horrors Of War” the main theme in the novel which hits very deep on the personal level and brings a lot of emotion out in you.
“All Quiet On The Western Front” Is set World War 1 on the western front which was 700 kilometers + of trenches running from France to the Swiss Border of the north. World War 1 was a blood bath of young soldiers as they went into the war blind with no previous combat experience whatsoever. 4 years of a hard long war
With the theme of “The Horrors Of War” there is a lot of description blended in with this making it have lots of imagery putting every last detail in for example When Paul(Main character) talks about killing a man with and sharpened spade “ The sharpened spade is a more handy and many-sided weapon; not only can it be used for jabbing a man under the chin, but it is much better for striking with because of its greater weight, and if one hits between the neck and shoulder it easily cleaves as far down as the chest” We can see the imagery in this is overwhelming but also we can see the dehumanization that paul has ass he talks about killing a man with a spade as someone would talk about mowing their lawn. This brings out some non-believing emotion in me as I thought a person would never be able to talk about killing someone so easily.
“The Horrors of war” brung emotion of like a pointless feeling this is because of all the horrors these young lads had gone through their whole generation was sacrificed they were completely changed humans we can see an example of how changed they would be from pauls experience of going home. Paul didn’t find an interest in anything he used to before the war. He was lost in his own world, not knowing what to do. We see from this how it would have been for many others across that generation. Left twiddling their thumbs looking at the things they used to be interested in as they have nothing else to do as they are so used to what they were doing in the war. They were used and thrown out as they were not needed anymore.
When Paul was at army training camp this was a big part of the technique “The Horror Of War” that brung out emotion in me and this emotion was disgust. This emotion was disgust because of the character Corporal Himmelstoss (Paul and his comrade’s trainer at the camp). Corporal Himmelstoss was a man greedy for power over others the reason he brought out this emotion was because of the things he made paul and his comrades do. The first thing that was disgusting was his bedwetting cure with Tjaden (one of pauls comrades) this cure was making him and another bedwetter bunk together at the training camp an absolutely disgusting and cruel thing from a man. The one other thing Himmelstoss did that was straight-up cruel was When He made paul and the other lads stand outside in the freezing cold with no gloves or warm clothes risking them all of the frostbites which could end up of amputation of the limbs etc. From this, we can see the Horror that Paul and his comrades went through at the Klosterneuburg barracks (Name of training camp) and how it was made to bring out emotion in the reader.
In Conclusion “All Quiet On The Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque by using the theme of “The Horrors Of War” Brings out a great deal of emotion in the reader of the novel and provides a great deal of imagery that is overwhelming to help bring out the emotion.
