~Ethan Pearson, Class of 2024

“Our knowledge of life is limited to death.”

~Erich Maria Remarque

Everyday since I was assigned to read the lengthy, timely, book called All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, I’ve been spending countless hours reading and writing on my couch in the living room. The language in the book was similar to reading some tenth century text. The essay felt as difficult to complete as trying to get drafted to the NBA, but I still couldn’t give up. Speaking of not giving up, I kept going and found the themes of War and Survival, and I reflected on how this book made me work hard to get things done.

War destroys generations. In All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, soldiers experience war that leaves them to become the lost generation. The soldiers who went to war as classmates soon became comrades, but ultimately, they became the lost generation. Paul slowly starts to lose his friends as the war goes on, and he experiences the horror of war everyday of his life. It’s the Autumn of 1918, and Paul is that last person still alive out of the original seven classmates. With no friends left, Paul is depressed and praying for an armistice to happen. He thinks about how if he had just returned home in 1916, he would’ve been free from all the suffering and war: 

And men will not understand us—for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten—and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside… the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin. [Chapter 12]

Paul’s old community doesn’t understand him; the old men of the town only know war as glory, not as the horror that it really is; moreover, Paul and his friends’ lives have been changed for the worse because of war. While on his 14 day leave, Paul slowly starts to realize how bad of an idea going back to his hometown really was. He knows how much the war has destroyed not only him, but his family too. His mom is sick, the town is almost empty, and Paul just wants to return to his youth, a simpler time. As Paul is on his last night in bed, he reflects on his trip: 

I ought never to have come here… I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. [Chapter 7] 

Paul realizes that going on leave was even worse than being on the frontline for Germany; his mom has cancer and he feels is an agony for everyone; moreover, the time Paul spent on the battlefield has changed his life forever. War is brutal. Soldiers are traumatized. Paul’s generation of soldiers have lost themselves over the fighting, and their life is on the line in the trenches.

Survival is difficult in war. In All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, all the soldiers, no matter what side they are with, are constantly fighting for their survival. When you’re always at the frontline like Paul and his friends, survival, especially for the German side, is quite difficult. Even in the early stages of the war, when Germany wasn’t losing, the trench warfare in general was one of the most brutal types of warfare, since neither side gained much land from each battle. What seems like just another day on the job for Paul turns into a day of survival when he proceeds up to the front and soon learns from Kat that there is a bombardment. Paul describes how much soldiers love the earthiness of the front. It protects them, it saves their lives. Then, he describes: 

At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. One cannot explain it…It is this other, this second sight in us, that has…saved us, without our knowing how.  [Chapter 4] 

It is a natural human instinct to protect ourselves by being afraid, and running away from danger; it may show fear; nonetheless, this second sight saved Paul and countless other soldiers on The Front. There is rumor of an offencive, and the German Army isn’t doing the greatest. They sense an upgrade in weapons on the English side, and their spirits aren’t too high. Paul then gets flashbacks to 2 months prior, when he was walking from one place to another, relaxed, and when he came back, he found that the place he was originally at had received a direct hit. 

It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bombproof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hours’ bombardment unscathed.” [Chapter 6]  

On The Front, Paul is fighting for his life; every single day he experiences some sort of close call; hence, the reason for all of his original friends dying by the end of the war. War has many weapons. All of them are deadly.

Reflection

Hard work helps you learn. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque made me realize that I need to work hard and dig deep in order to find the purpose of a difficult book like this. When reading All Quiet on the Western Front, I was forced to channel my inner hardworking self and find meaning in picking up this book in the first place. There were some struggles: old-timey vocabulary, unusual grammar, and others. But I wasn’t going to let that cause me to give up. 

At first, I didn’t really think that this book that we had to read in English, All Quiet on the Western Front,was going to require lots of hard work. Our class was assigned to highlight themes and vocabulary words. One thing that I didn’t realize at the start of reading was that I had to highlight so many words! Sadly, I had no choice but to keep reading and annotating. That sorrow turned into joy by the end of the book, and I was loving the description of the battle scenes. Finally, I’m glad that I finished the long haul and came out of it a more hardworking and disciplined person. 

Besides learning new vocabulary, more importantly, I got to learn a lot about the horrors of WW1. Most of the book made me feel empathetic and horrified. The themes really made me think about how a whole generation of people ended up “lost.” The book definitely challenged me to be more open to reading longer chapters in one sitting. Similar to reading The Call of the Wild, this book taught me that reading an old book not only improves my vocabulary but also my overall tolerance for difficult pieces of literature. 

Two months ago, I was complaining about reading All Quiet on the Western Front. The vocabulary was above my level, the chapters left me puzzled, and I didn’t want to work at it. Just as Paul and his friends worked hard to try and achieve greatness for Germany, I pushed through my negative thoughts and gave this book another try. And well, I enjoyed it.

I worked hard. 

It paid off.