~Elijah Donnalson, Class of 2024

While reading, I am trying to determine whether reading All Quiet on the Western Front will be a light or challenging read. I later found out that All Quiet on the Western Front is not an easy read, but a challenging read that took a lot of focus and annotations. Although the book has some challenging twists and turns and some abstract words, I worked through the challenges and stayed committed so I could understand the horrors of war and death in war.

Death and war are inevitable. As Paul starts to lose his friends, he soon realizes that death is his new norm. In All Quiet on the Western Front, by Rich Maria Remarque, the physical and emotional feeling of death is displayed throughout the whole book. In chapter 5, Paul and his comrades were sitting in the blazing hot sun, sweat dripping from their eyes. At last, we reach a trench that is in somewhat better condition. Paul and his comrades wanted to get to a trench so they could have a position for a counterattack. They were attacked, and they took a few of the enemies out, but they also lost some. The death didn’t faze Paul, as he was fighting to get shelter.” He runs a few steps more while the blood

We are so close to the heels of our retreating enemies that we spout from his neck like a fountain. reach it almost at the same time as them. In this way, we suffer a little. It does not come quite to hand-to-hand fighting; they are driven casualties. A machine gun barks but is silenced by a bomb. back. We arrive once again at our shattered trench and pass on. Nevertheless, a couple of seconds has sufficed to give us five beyond its stomach wound. With the butt of his rifle. Oh, this is turning back again! We reach the shelter of the reserves in the face of one of the unwounded machine gunners. We bayonet them and yearn to creep in and disappear.”

Paul has seen death in ways many people could not imagine; he becomes immune to the physical nature of death; savage and raging; we will kill, for they are still our mortal enemies.

When Paul first got into the war, he thought he was fighting for his country and the generals, but he soon realized that he didn’t matter to the outside world. In chapter 3 of All Quiet of the Western Front, Paul is very excited about the general coming to visit because he was one of the people that he was fighting for. When the general gets there, Paul and his friends realize how nasty and mean-spirited he was, and they start to understand that their lives would just be another casualty of war. 

In later chapters, whenever Paul has to fight, he is no longer fighting for his country or for the glory of his country; he is fighting to survive. Soldiers on the front fight not for the glory of their nation but rather for their survival; they kill to keep from being killed.” Paul realizes that most deaths in war are meaningless to the rest of the world; Paul no longer kills for his country but to prevent his death; I am constantly in flight from death. 

Death and the horrors of modern war are a recurring theme in All Quiet on the Western Front. Paul struggles to cope with the horrors of modern war throughout all chapters. In the horrors of modern war, Paul realized his gun was nothing to a tank. Men on the front were killed in many different ways, and Paul had to adjust to the horrors of modern war if he wanted to survive. Paul and his comrades were fighting in unsanitary conditions while they were in the trenches, but there was nothing they could do about it unless they were willing to go into no man’s land. 

“Death in war has ruined us for everything. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world, and we had to shoot it to pieces.” 

Paul has to ignore the horrors of modern war if he wants to survive. The first bomb, the first explosion, bursts in our hearts. Paul gets affected by what happened on the front, but he continues to fight through until he can’t. Paul is a young man who is so accustomed to seeing death and body parts everywhere that it strays to mess with his head. Paul also realized it is not normal to be this young, and yet there is nothing but death and the horrors of modern war. I am twenty years old, yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatality. Paul is trying to learn how to live with all of the death around him; the horrors of modern war are making Paul rethink why he does what he does; these footsteps in the trench behind me remind me of a bond from the terrible loneliness and fear of death.

Paul is constantly disconnected from himself because he can’t cope with death, but he will soon learn he just has to live with it. In war, you will have to adjust to death and the horrors of modern war if you want to survive.

Reflection

Commitment is always worth it in the end. All Quiet On The Western Front challenged me to stay fully committed to annotating, and it helped me go into more depth about understanding the different themes throughout the chapters. When reading All Quiet On The Western Front, I had to challenge myself to read with a more open mind, whether it was by annotating abstract words or trying to identify what was happening in a chapter. Going into the book, I was fixated on the book not being that entertaining because of the time the book was based. I got over my assumptions and started to enjoy the book, and this made my annotations and total understanding of the book better. 

When reading All Quiet on the Western Front, I went through a rollercoaster of emotions. My mindset about the book changed in many different ways, whether it was identifying different themes, seeing characters die, or trying to understand why certain things were done the way they were. I was challenged to understand different words and terms because the book was written at a different time, but it was fun to challenge myself by trying to learn new words.All Quiet on the Western Front would have never caught my eye if I were choosing books to read on my own. I am glad I read it because it expanded my mind and developed reading skills in many different ways.