“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. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me.”
All Quiet on the Western Front is not a feel-good story about war but rather a glimpse of conflict and horror that those who fight for their country experience. The classic narrative emphasizes how devastation is universal among citizens of all the nations involved. Amidst the destruction, Paul, the German narrator, has moments when he appreciates the value of family. When he has to write a note to a fallen comrade’s mother, his sensitivities surface. He hears another comrade call for his mother before collapsing, and then he realizes his own mother is sick, and he tries to shield her from the horrors he faces.
“No Mother, that’s only talk,” I answer, “there’s not very much in what Bredemeyer says. You see for instance. I’m well and fit——”
Additionally, human connections and friendships become important as Remarque, through his characters, comments on war, and death. Out of necessity, there are conversations about formerly unspeakable topics, and the men express themselves about the hideous annihilations they witness with thoughts and words they didn’t realize they possessed.
“We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don’t talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have.”
The poetic inclinations of the narrator are conveyed in some of the story’s symbols, particularly the boots that are passed from one man to another as one after another succumbs to a violent death. Another symbol that struck me as significant was the bridge. The men cross bridges throughout the story and contemplate their rites of passage.
Perhaps the most poignant theme is the hopelessness and despair that the men communicate as they realize their bodies are still growing, as evidenced by clothes that no longer fit. However, with what they have experienced, they are adults who die at war.
“We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.”
