All Quiet on the Western Front Term Paper

Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque. Specifically, it will contain a historical analysis of the book, and look at the question: "how and why does World War I have an impact on this novel as it does? "All Quiet on the Western Front" is a war novel that brings the true horrors of war home to the reader in an effort to show the futility of war.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

All Quiet on the Western Front" may be one of the most classic and enduring novels about war, as it relates the story of young, innocent men caught up in the violence and bloody battles of trench warfare at its worst. Many of the young men enlisted so they would not be thought of as cowards, which was a prevalent feeling at the time. The main character, Baumer, is one of these men caught up in the patriotism and fervor that caused so many young men to enlist. "But for all that, we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards -- they were very free with these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see" (Remarque 17). They "learned to see" the horror of war very quickly, and realized that those who stayed behind were the cowards.They were the ones who urged others to go, and they stayed home where they were safe, warm, and dry.

World War I was the first war to make use of modern weapons, such as the machine gun and the airplane. It was the first war to introduce mass killing on a scale that no one thought possible, and the young men who fought in the war were often permanently wounded - not only physically, but often mentally as well. The doctors called it "shell shock." Today they call it the "Gulf War Syndrome," or the "Vietnam War Syndrome." Men in war see horrific things on and off the battlefield, and they cannot forget them. The first World War began a long line of horrific battles, and the veterans who returned brought the horrors home with them, and often kept them buried deep inside. Baumer's mother asks him, "Was it very bad out there, Paul?'"(Remarque 143). How can he possibly answer her? That he has seen most of his friends die in terrible ways? That it is wet, cold, and miserable, and….....