All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

The sense of loss in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is prominent throughout the novel. Identity, lost; the war, lost; and themselves, lost. “[Paul’s] state is getting worse.” (pg. 222) Little did he know, he was already dead. Paul “…can take nothing more.” (pg. 295) Stripped to pieces, his senseless soul is deprived of proper nourishment. Then “he fell in October 1918”.  (Last Page) Death; the best thing that happened to Paul.

            Paul’s generation is the “lost generation”. Only seeing through the eyes of death—fear and sorrow shroud the men as they “know only that in some strange and melancholy way [they] have become a waste land." (pg. 24) As “The war swept [each one] away.” (pg. 24) , the men lose their only hope and self-respect. They “…are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, [they] are crude and sorrowful and superficial” they “…are lost." (pg. 110) “The generation that has grown up before [them] will be strange to [them] and will push [them] aside “ (pg. 254), as if not there. The men don’t know what life is, how it works, or what it feels like to have it. That’s the greatest loss, life.

It’s sad to say that it’s the people who have lived and learned most that have led these young men to their final chapters. Parents, teachers, and the government body all played a big influence in the path these men took. As they looked around and asked "why," they focused on what they had learned at home and in school. The patriotic myths of the older generation become apparent when Paul goes home. A man in the army criticizes Paul for not saluting him when Paul has spent a good share of his life in the trenches killing the enemy and trying to survive. These examples of betrayal are a motif in Remarque's novel.

            ". . . 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." (pg. 264) Paul’s “… knowledge of life is limited to death” (pg. 264) Surviving the rest of the war would have been bad enough for Paul to endure physically and emotionally. Every time Paul went into the trenches, he lost more of himself; coming back at recurring emotional lows because of his consumption of death and violence that had been going on very close to him, deceiving his mind into thoughts of trickery and even worse, nothingness.

            Loss controls and dictates the lives of these men, especially Paul. Is there any gain in winning a war after you’ve lost so much? As everyone’s “…legs refuse to move” (pg. 111)  the shear thought of going to the front cripples the men. Every blood-soaked step towards the front eliminates any thoughts from one’s mind, leaving the men in pure cluelessness.

            Paul is loss, and loss is everything.