All Quiet On The Western Front Critical Analysis 6vn6u

Kempski 1

All Quiet on the Western Front

Monica Kempski Mrs. Johnstone Novel Critical Analysis 1 April 2009

Kempski 2 Introduction: War is an inevitable force that transpires from two nations’ contradicting beliefs or values. When these opposite forces clash, each side does what is necessary to uphold their strong conviction and achieve their means; for instance, allowing their young men to fight in the war for the greater good of their country. These youths are bombarded by patriotic propaganda, by which they are all too willing to serve their country. For this reason, they are totally blinded to the true nature of war and its unimaginable experiences. Upon suffering horrendous ordeals during wartime, young men’s lives are permanently corrupted, resulting in a nonexistent youth. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque attempts to tell the story of these youths through Paul Baumer, as he comes to realize the horrific reality involved with serving his homeland of during World War One. Remarque giftedly delivers this story through superb structure, style, and theme. Critical Commentaries: There have been both positive and negative criticisms regarding Remarque’s chosen writing style that deals with the theme in All Quiet on the Western Front since its initial publication in 1928. In a positive criticism, Frank Ernest Hill claims Remarque’s style as a “sharply etched description of suffering, endurance, grim humor, and climactic event.” (Contemporary Literary Criticism 325.5) Then, he adds that this style is a work of art that will impact the sensitive reader dramatically. Within the style, the novel contains intense graphic content that extract varying emotions from the reader. Frank Ernest Hill continues to say that “there are the ages of vulgar humor, Germanic yet universal in character.” An example of this vulgar humor is shown when Paul’s artillery talks about

Kempski 3 women. One particular man even comments on his girlfriend’s stockings and boasts about her mammoth legs. Boasting about huge legs is paradoxical because a man would usually boast about a skinny wife, rather than one of substance. Nonetheless, the paradox creates humor for the reader. Even though this humor may not seem vulgar to the modern day, it was deemed so at the time that the novel was written in the 1920s where it was scandalous for a woman to display her legs. These archetypes of sexuality and humor are universal because they do not only happen in , but in all cultures. The universality created compels the reader because they can identify with the content of the age. In grimmer archetypical situations like death and war, a universal connection allows for the reader to feel strongly towards the narrator and his traumas. By having this identification with the narrator, the reader can understand the content of the book as realistic. The more the reader connects and relates to the characters, the more likely the reader is to be affected by the novel. Hill concludes his criticism by stating in regards to the impact of the reader, “in this sense it is a work of art.” (Contemporary Literary Criticism 325.7) Only when the reader is impacted by the characters and the story, can they truly feel the depression of a non-existent youth that war brings to the young men. However, Joseph Wood Krutch found Remarque’s style to be unimpressionable. In the criticism, he notes that the writing style was told with “a sort of naïveté which is the result of not too little experience, but of too much.” (Contemporary Literary Criticism 326.3) Krutch further remarks that Remarque’s abundant experience of war kept him from using rhetoric that spurs deep analysis. Remarque, being a war veteran, thought of the experience of war as something that could never be properly analyzed. Thus, Krutch scolds Remarque’s simplicity in style because it does not allow the reader to have a

Kempski 4 proper interpretation of his experiences in wartime. However, an intelligent view of the novel’s style will refute Krutch’s criticism. Even though Remarque’s style is simplistic, it contains enough careful diction and descriptions that formulate a moving tale that enables any reader to feel emotion for the characters when they diminish their youth. Style: In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque’s brilliant style allows for the reader to be able to feel emotional for his character’s loss of youth. At the beginning of the novel, Paul visits his friend who is dying in an army hospital from a wound he had received during combat. “He lies there now- but why? The whole world ought to by this bed and say: “That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old; he does not want to die. Let him not die!” (29.7) This age contains syntax of distinguishing characteristics such as an exclamation point, question marks, and semicolons. The exclamation point used helps to create a tone of urgency in Paul’s voice. With this marking, the reader can assume that he is feeling overwhelmed by a rush of demanding concern for the life of his friend who may not be with him for much longer. The syntax also affects the age’s pacing. The semicolons make the age’s flow very inconsistent and broken. This is because the semicolons create long complex sentences that are used for Paul’s long drawn-out and concerned thoughts. These sentences provide a sharp contrast with the short sentences in the age that portray thoughts of stress and exigency. The syntax aids in contributing to the rhetorical effect on the reader because it shows that Paul is actually thinking about his expiring friend, and expresses Paul’s feeling that his friend should be entitled to hold on to his life by commanding that he not die.

Kempski 5 In this situation, both Paul and his friend have lost their youth. Paul’s friend is paralyzed and dying to the point where cannot have happy, normal experiences that a normal youth his age could. Paul has also lost some of his youth because he is experiencing death. For one of the first times, Paul becomes aware of death and starts to abandon his childish thoughts that all things turn out joyful in life. A second age showing Paul’s loss of youth contains moving style. This age tells of the moment when Paul is sitting alone in an abandoned trench until he is ed by a Frenchman whom he stabs to death out of fright. Remarque’s use of personification and imagery displays Paul’s terrible experience of having to watch a severely wounded man who slowly dies. The man is described as having eyes that “cry out.” (Remarque 219.3) This personification shows that the man is struggling, and Paul is aware of this because he can see the suffering in his eyes. Remarque also depicts the man’s struggling through auditory and kinesthetic imagery. The words “gazes, still, without a sound, and gurgle ceased” (Remarque 220) show the progression of the man inching closer to death and finally dying. After the man es away, Paul “propped the man up again so that he lies comfortably. I close his eyes.” (221.9-222) These caring regretful actions show that Paul respects the man and feels remorse for the terrible ordeal that Paul inflicted upon not only the Frenchman, but himself as well. The actions of making the man comfortable are to ease Paul’s mind by thinking that the man no longer suffers. In conclusion, the style used by Remarque throughout the novel shows the horrid experience of death suffered by Paul during the war that rob him from his happy childhood innocence; therefore, drawing empathy from the reader.

Kempski 6 Gruesome diction and visual imagery are also crucial elements of Remarque’s style that draw emotions from the terrible yet maturing ordeals Paul had to suffer through. A significant age describes horses that become critically wounded during battle. Their piercing cries were described by Paul as, “the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning” (62.9). From Paul’s comment, the reader can agree that the suffering of innocent animals is a lofty occurrence. Moreover, Remarque continues to describe a particular horses’ fatality through graphic diction. “The belly of one is ripped open, the guts trail out. He becomes tangled in them and falls, then he stands up again.” (Remarque 63.8) This appalling image created through the ghastly diction of the age further creates a sense of repulsion with the reader. In a later age, Remarque uses extremely graphic words to describe soldiers’ injuries during bombardment. “We see men living with their skulls blown open, we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell hole; a lance corporal crawls a mile and a half on his hands dragging his smashed knee behind him; another goes to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his intestines; we see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces.” (134.6) These descriptions of the injuries to both humans and animals create the unimaginable scenes of war that construct a sickening feeling that Paul and the reader both feel. Again, Paul is forced to leave his youth behind him as he literally sees that life is full of danger and suffering. Lastly, several paradoxes are used by Remarque to emphasize the contradictory mentality of war. When Paul is fighting on the front, he says “If your own father came

Kempski 7 over with [the enemy] you would not hesitate to fling a bomb at him.” (114.4) Under normal circumstances, it would be satanic for someone to want to brutally kill their father, but because the person fears for their own life during battle, they will do whatever they can to save themselves. Paul losses his youthful innocence by being required to murder anyone that is a danger to him. Techniques: Remarque utilizes many techniques that satisfactorily tell Paul’s story of the trauma involved with war that result in his lost youth. The First Person point of view is crucial to the narration of the story because Paul gives personal s of his days in the trenches. This personal allows insight on Paul’s thoughts and emotions throughout the novel as he develops from a child mindset to a disturbed yet mature adult. With a second or third person point of view, we cannot get fist-hand documentation on the thoughts and emotions of the dynamic maturing character. A final technique that Remarque utilizes is a flashback. Through the novel Paul s his childhood memories, such as attending school and church. After these memories, Paul realizes that that part of his life is no longer with him and that it died when he stepped into battleground. Structure: The novel’s structure contributes to its success by making the content of the story both realistic and relatable, allowing for the reader to feel empathetic for Paul’s misplaced youth. All Quiet on the Western Front moves in chronological order from chapter to chapter. These chapters are short depictions of events from Paul’s point of view where he tells of his experiences and feelings. In result, this technique mirrors a

Kempski 8 journal entry. The journal entry structure creates a realistic effect because the reader s the experiences and events as they happen, step-by-step. Here, they can easily identify with Paul because they are simultaneously going through the events that destroy his youth. A second part of the structure involves the countless conversations throughout the novel. By experiencing dialogue, the reader can actually feel as if they are with Paul during the terrible events that destroy Paul’s youthful innocence. Theme: The several themes in the novel contribute to Remarque’s purpose of writing the novel: having the common person understand how the overall emotional effects of war lead for the young men to have a nonexistent youth. Firstly, the soldiers loose their youthful innocence by using violence to protect themselves:

We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down…..we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves and to be revenged.

Here, they ultimately are trying to avoid death, doing whatever it takes regardless if they kill a man. Later, Paul reiterates himself by saying that “Through the years our business has been killing, our knowledge of life is limited to death.” (264.3) The troops are no longer immune to murder and violence as they were as boys. The young troops are adapted to killing and fully aware of death.

Kempski 9 In addition, the men lost their youth because they are no longer exposed to women while at war. When looking at a girl in a poster in the bunker, Paul explains, “[She] is a wonder to us. We have quite forgotten that there are such things, and even now we can hardly believe our eyes. We have seen nothing like it for years, nothing like it for happiness, beauty and joy.” (141.8) It is apparent in this statement that Paul and his friends have forgotten about the youthful focus of finding and loving a woman. Later on in the novel, Paul returns home on absence. During this time, we see how Paul is emotionally disconnected from the world outside of war. When he first returns home and sees his family he explains, “There is a distance, a veil between us.” (160.5) Paul is unable to show emotion he showed in his youth towards his family. He cannot connect with them because they have not experienced what Paul had in war. The people of his youth are strangers to him. Furthermore, we see Paul’s disconnection with the objects of his childhood. When he comes upon his beloved schoolbooks he notes:

I implore them with my eyes: Speak to me-take me up-take me, Life of my Youth-you who are carefree, beautiful-receive me again- I wait. Images float through my mind, but they do not grip me, they are mere shadows and memories. Nothing-nothing- My disquietude grows. A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me.

Here, Paul has lost the ion for the values he had in his childhood. Paul is also emotionally altered when he discovers that the enemy is an ordinary person. When he unintentionally stabs a Frenchman, he sees that they are as common as

Kempski 10 brothers. He discovers he has a family and a life of his own, leaving Paul to feel immense guilt: Now for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand grenades, your bayonet, your rifle: now I see your wife, your face, and our fellowship…Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, the same dying and the same agony-Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?

Along with his realization that the enemy is similar to himself, Paul has lost his clouded youthful thoughts that the enemy is an evil person to be destroyed. Conclusion: Erich Maria Remarque brilliantly portrays how the unimaginable experiences of war rob young soldiers of their youth. Remarque’s technique, style, structure, and chosen themes accurately serve the purpose of his novel, allowing for all readers to relate to and undergo the appalling event of war. All Quiet on the Western Front will remain a masterwork of success through time.

Kempski 11 Works Cited Contemporary Literary Criticism. 21. Galenet, 1982. Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Fawcett Books, 1982.