Remarques Worldview in the Novel All Quiet on the Western Front - Book Report/Review Example

Remarque’s worldview in the Novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” The novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, is a reflection of the conditions of the soldiers who fought during the First World War, from the perspective of one of the German soldiers, Paul Bäumer. However, when observed closely, the narration in this novel is a reflection of Remarque’s worldview, most especially regarding war and its effects in the lives of the soldiers who engage in the battlefront. Remarque views the warfront as a completely poor environment for humans, owing to the fact that it turns humans into total zombies, whose feelings are numb and with no hope for anything good in life. The war environment turns even young school students like Paul and the rest of his classmates into ferocious beings capable of destroying everything and everyone conceived as their enemy. Thus, the wave of the war, according to Paul, “turns us into thugs, into murderers, into God only knows what devils” (54). Therefore, the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, portrays Remarque’s worldview, that the soldiers on the battlefront receive the brunt edge of any war. In the narration, Paul Bäumer and his friends who were his classmates got recruited into the war by the persuasion of one of their teachers, with the view that they were going to the Western Front to defend their nation against the British and the American forces. However, the young volunteer soldiers soon realize that they were fighting a meaningless war, where the political leaders and the war commanders were championing the war without any real experience of the dangerous and inhumane conditions of the war in the battlefront (Tighe, 48). This serves to show that Remarque views the world as a place where no one else understand the devastating effects of the war, other than the soldiers who are involved in the battle front. This fact is well illustrated by the experiences Paul and his fellow soldiers gained from the time they were admitted at the catholic hospital. The soldiers could spend time without being examined, “because there are too few surgeons” (Remarque, 119). In Remarque’s world view, the society does not understand the pain of the soldiers well enough, explaining why the soldiers could be kept for days without being examined. In fact, Remarque projects the view that; even the closest people to the soldiers, such as their families, do not understand their situation (Tighe, 52). This is the reason Paul’s father did not stop at anything just to make him narrate the war experiences, despite the fact that Paul was not able to talk about the war when he went home for leave. While Paul wanted to discard the soldier identity and at least try to come into terms with life away from the bombings, and the deaths and the hunger that characterized the battlefront, his father seemed quite insensitive. The father preferred that Paul remains in the soldier’s uniform, so that he could take him to visit his acquaintances and talk about the war (Remarque, 77). Remarque also presents the contrast of the war front vs. the home front, with a view that the different fronts constitute two different worlds. The home front is a world where the youth have dreams of advancing their lives and becoming something better in the future. In contrast, the war front is a different world altogether, where the youth who constitutes the soldiers die and give up their dreams, such that their only wish is an opportunity to survive the war without dying. The war front is a strange world, where the soldiers join with great hopes of liberation, but leaves with the hope that war will never occur again. When Paul went home during his two-week leave, everything seemed to be very strange to him, even his own civilian clothes. Thus, Paul observes that after he went home and dressed in a suit, “I looked at myself in the glass. It is a strange sight (Remarque, 77). This is simply meant to portray Remarque’s view of the war front as a place that transforms life from the reality, into a form of strangeness that makes it very difficult for the soldiers to heal from the evils of the war. Therefore, Remarque observes that even though Paul and the rest of his friends who entered into the war were young men, they could no longer consider themselves as young men anymore (Remarque, 42). Despite the fact that the youths in the home front have wild dreams that entails taking the world by storm, the devastating experiences of the warfront kills such dreams, such that the youths never perceive themselves as young people with dreams anymore, but simply as already old men waiting to die with no dreams or even hope for anything better. Paul narrates that although they joined the warfront as young men who had started to love life, “we had to shoot it to pieces” (Remarque, 42). This statement is simply meant to show that the ravaging effects of the war are such traumatic, such that they completely change the soldiers on the war front completely. Therefore, it is Remarque’s world view that war is a difficult event that no one, not even the soldiers, can be able to comprehend. Remarque holds the view that the effects of the war are so much devastating, such that the soldiers will have much difficulty in healing even after the war comes to an end. For the soldiers, they could have succeeded in escaping death in the war, but they “were destroyed by the war” (Remarque, 1). Remarque also holds the view that the political vs. personal destinies in any war differ to a greater extent, and will at no one time become congruent. The objective of the political leaders and the war generals are completely different from the objectives of the soldiers in the war. Therefore, Remarque holds the world view that the political leaders support war for no other reason other than for “madness and greed of life” (Remarque, 54). This is totally different from the reasons why the soldiers continue to fight in the war. The soldiers do not join the war because they understand its purpose or how they will benefit from it, but simply because they are following orders. However, after the soldiers are already in the battlefront, their sole objective is simple, as Paul put it, “seeking and fighting for nothing but our deliverance” (Remarque, 54). The worldview projected by Remarque in relation to the reasons why the soldiers fight while on the battle front, is that of people who are unwilling to engage in war, but who must spring into action merely for the sake of ensuring their survival. The major aim of the soldiers on the battle front is to protect themselves against being hit by the enemy, through applying the adage; “if we dont destroy them, they will destroy us” (Remarque, 55). Here, Remarque holds the view that the politicians engage in war for the sake of advancing their selfish interests, but the soldiers engage in war as a matter of life and death. In conclusion, the worldview of Remarque is that war is not a good thing regardless of whatever its purpose might be, and it harms the soldiers more than any other party in the war. Paul remembers how they passed over the bodies of other dying soldiers when on the run, but they simply could not help them. When such soldiers cried and tried to clutch on to their legs, Paul and the rest of the soldiers who were not injured simply sprung over them and left them for dead. It is such events in the memory of war that indicate that war can transform humanity into a beast, incapable of feeling or even sympathizing with the others who are suffering. Works Cited Remarque, Erich M, and Brian Murdoch. All Quiet on the Western Front. London: Vintage, 1996. Web. February 6, 2015. Tighe, Joseph A. "All Quiet On The Western Front A Phenomenological Investigation Of War." Critical Survey 16, 3 (2004): 48-61. Read More