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“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.��



From its opening in the trenches with the German Army in WWI to an end replete with utter hopelessness, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front presents a devastating picture of a soldier at war. What's clear is that our protagonist, Paul, could be a soldier of any country; his concerns and emotions could be those of a soldier of this century rather than the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, despite the images we associate with WWI (such as the gas attacks and brutal conditions in the trenches), there is something very modern about All Quiet on the Western Front. It may well have to do with Remarque's attitude toward war. From the outset, we are warned that this is not an adventure; even those who manage to escape the war unscathed are damaged. In effect, a generation is destroyed by the war.

In trying to make sense of the war, Remarque explores the powerlessness of soldiers on the front lines. From a belief in their government's rationale in going to war, soldiers increasingly focus on their own deliverance. The end is utterly bleak. All the promise of youth is destroyed by disease, starvation and ultimately death. Those who come back from this war are still damaged; there is no way they can go through the horrors of war without the scars.