Quiet on the Western Front Essay

It alls seems useless to them now. Education, wealth, or any other civilian factor has no significance at the front. They have no reference point to imagine a future outside the military or how to assimilate back into society.

The younger soldiers have different experiences from the older ones. The older men usually had prewar families and jobs. They thought of the war as an interruption in the normal cycle of life and that therefore thought that it eventually would end and they would return back to normal. In their past lives, they had real identities and roles to play within society. The younger men such as Paul and his mates were blank slates with no such real identities. They came into the war and the army when they were at the beginning of their adult lives. Still, they have none among their number have any definite answers to Muller's questions (ibid). Even for them, they do not have any concept of themselves outside of the and the army. In this way, Remarque emphasizes the war's ravaging effect on the real humanity of the soldiers.They live outdoors in conditions like animals, apart from real human contact where death is all to possible. In such a context, it is hard to imagine anything else but the danger around them.

Conclusion

The experiences of the soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front sound so much like the experiences of war in Vietnam, Iraq or in a dozen other locales. Probably the most tragic point of it all is that even when one comes back from war whole in body, they do not come back whole in spirit or in mind. Unfortunately, Muller's questions have no answer, even a century after the end of World War I.

Works Cited

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York, NY:….....