Introduction :

Erich Maria Remarque born in 22 June 1898 at Osnaburk in Germany and died 25 September
1970 (aged 72). Novelist Erich Maria Remarque was drafted into the German army at the age of 18 and
was wounded several times. After the war he worked as a racing-car driver and as a sportswriter while
working on All Quiet on the Western Front. The book was an immediate international success. Remarque
wrote several other novels. Some had popular success, but none achieved the critical prestige of his first
book.His famous novel “ All Quiet on the Western Front” was written in 1920 bt published in 1928 due
to certain politicle reasons.

(Summery of Whole presentation)

Full title:  ·  All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen Nichts Neues)

Author: · Erich Maria Remarque

Genres:  · War novel, historical fiction, novel of social protest

Language:  · German

Time and place written:  · Late 1920s, Berlin

Date of first publication:  ·  1928

Publisher:  · A. G. Ullstein in Germany; Little, Brown in the United States

Narrator:  · Paul Bäumer

Point of view  · Paul, the narrator, speaks primarily in the first person, often in the plural as he
describes the collective experience of the soldiers immediately around him. He switches to the
first person singular as he ruminates on his own thoughts and feelings about the war. The novel
switches to the third person and an unnamed narrator for the two paragraphs following Paul’s
death.

Tone  · Paul is Remarque’s mouthpiece in the novel, and Paul’s views can be considered those
of Remarque.

Tense  · Present; occasionally past during flashbacks. The unnamed narrator at the end of the
novel uses the past tense.

Settings (time)  · Late in World War I: 1917–1918

Settings (place)  · The German/French front

Protagonist  · Paul
Major conflict  · Paul and his friends have unwittingly entered a hellish war in which hope for
survival is sullied by the knowledge that they have already been mentally scarred beyond
recovery.

Rising action  · The wiring fatigue and the subsequent shelling in Chapter Four bring the men
and the reader to the front for the first time in the story.

Climax  · Paul’s killing of Gérard Duval in Chapter Nine is his first encounter with hand-to-hand
combat and, in a sense, with the reality of war.

Falling action  · Paul’s remorse at killing Duval solidifies the novel’s total rejection of the war
and nationalist politics.

Themes  · The horror of war; the effect of war on the soldier; nationalism and political power

Motifs · The pressure of patriotic idealism; carnage and gore; animal instinct

symbols  · Kemmerich’s boots, which symbolize the cheapness of human life in the war

Foreshadowing  · There is little foreshadowing in the novel; the relentless carnage of the first
ten chapters may foreshadow the death of Paul’s group in Chapters 11 and 12.

SUMMERY:

All Quiet on the Western Front he novel opens behind the German lines of the Western Front in
world war 1 during the summer of 1916. Paul, Tjaden, Müller, Albert and a few others are eating. They
all volunteered to be soldiers for this war and are just beginning to question the wisdom of the
schoolteachers who encouraged them to enlist. Today, their food supplies are bountiful because the
cook prepared food for 150 men, but only 80 have returned from battle. Paul and his buddies visit the
hospital to see a stricken friend – the hospital exudes a vibe of incompetence and little compassion for
the wounded.
Relatively young reinforcements arrive for an operation to put up protective fence wire against the
advancing enemy, British and American troops. The men eat well before the mission and discuss the
irony of their situation – those in power are idiots, teachers are untrustworthy, the discipline around
camp is meaningless. Himmelstoss accosts the group with orders. They wait to get back at him until one
night, when he's leaving a pub drunk. They turn on him, mug him, hold him down, and literally whip his
butt with a switch. They feel like 'young heroes.' And the stripes that now decorate Himmelstoss's bare
bottom mirror the multiple stripes on a military outfit, which are supposed to conveying rank and
respect.

Back at base camp, Paul and his friends eat, smoke, and fantasize about all that they are missing.
Himmelstoss returns to try and order the men around – the recent battle was his first experience on the
Front, and it has made him less reliant on the power of stripes on his uniform. But he still presses, is
disrespected, and storms off. The men review their dead and condemn the rules of military hierarchy as
they apply to the Front, where rules are simply different. The men are brought to a field judge who
notes Himmelstoss's petty cruelties and lets them off easy for disrespecting him. To celebrate, they
catch and cook a wild goose.

As they prepare for an offensive onslaught by the enemy, they are accosted by rats, which they kill in
creative ways. Then they are bombarded at night, which drives the youngest recruits to insane and
suicidal acts. Next comes hand-to-hand combat. In the terror and violence, Paul realizes that he and his
fellow soldiers are becoming wild beasts. They listen at night during the quiet to the sounds of dozens of
men dying in the brush, unable to be rescued by anyone.

Paul is given two weeks' leave and returns home to his mother, who is sick with cancer, and his father,
who is insensitive and eager for stories of battle. Paul feels alienated, realizing that anyone who hasn't
been on the Front can't understand what he has undergone. He retreats further into himself during his
stay at home. On duty, he visits the dead Kemmerich's mother and lies to convince her that her long-
suffering son died instantly. Paul also visits his schoolteacher, Kantorek, the one who convinced him and
his friends to enlist. He chides his former teacher for painting a false picture of the war as an honorable
way of defending the fatherland. Returning to the Front, Paul regrets ever having gone home.

Paul is sent to a special training camp next to a war prisoner compound. As lacking as he has felt in
resources, he feels wealthy compared to the mostly Russian prisoners who beg for his garbage. He gives
them some of the cakes that his mother baked for him.

Paul is back on the Front, guarding a bombed schoolhouse, preparing to enter Russia. Violent images
accost him on the journey – naked bodies of soldiers whose clothes were literally blown off them,
headless corpses, severed body parts… Paul and the other soldiers are shelled along the way and hide in
previous shell holes for protection. The Front has shifted – it shifts right over Paul as enemy soldiers
literally run over him. When surprised by one, he instinctively kills him – a French soldier – and waits
with him, almost apologetically, as the man dies slowly. Rifling through the man's wallet and seeing his
family pictures, Paul promises to write to them.

With resources scarcer than ever, men tired, and morale ebbing lower, Paul grows ever more
philosophical about their demise on many levels: he ponders Youth, Hope, Order, Spirit, and Trust. A
soldier named Detering deserts but is captured. Berger tries to euthanize a dog and is shot in the
process – as is the orderly who tries to rescue Berger. Müller is shot point blank. The remaining men are
starving. When Kat is shot in the leg, Paul carries him for miles, only to discover that Kat was shot in the
head and died while Paul was hauling him. Among his group of friends, Paul is the only survivor.At the
end he also dies and writer himself narrates the story in last two paragraphs.while rest of the novel is
narrated by Paul Baumer.
Cha racters:
Paul is The Man. This is his book, his story, his journey. He's the protagonist and, until about the last
paragraph, the narrator. He's the reason why we have front row seats to one of the most gruesome and
hellish wars of all time. And not only do we have front row seats, but we are able to scrutinize America's
WWI enemy: Germany.

Paul is not a famous war hero. He's not a high-ranking, superstar officer. He's not a famous writer. He's
just a regular old Joe with a family at home in a cute little German village. He likes to drink beer and
think about girls, and, when he was home, he was in the process of writing a play called Saul – he likes
to write and tell stories. He's been to school and he likes to read books, but he is too young to have had
any major life experiences before enlisting in the war. He's your typical teenage boy – excited for his
future, but still naïve to certain things in life. That is, until the war changes everything and makes him an
expert in death. In many ways, Paul is ordinary, and that's why it's so easy to relate to him. We don't
know about you, but we see ourselves in Paul, and because of that, the war he endures seems all the
more horrible

Kat is the leader of the pack in almost every way. He is 40, mature, strong, and has a
distinctive sixth sense in identifying trouble and food, which the other men admire greatly. Kat
becomes Paul's closest friend and ally in the course of the story. He believes in duty. And despite
not personally embracing the ideals that drew him to this war, he fights his heart out. Kat's big
moments in the book come from resolving little conflicts, from finding and killing the wild
goose, to, in the end, dying from a shrapnel wound in the head after a bullet has hit his shin. He
died in Paul's arms as Paul hurries to get him to the triage area.

Corporal Himmelstoss Though Himmelstoss is an authority figure during the war, during peacetime he
was a postman. He's the stereotype of an insecure man in a world of NBA all-stars. His character is the
prototype of a man who would do anything to feel power. It is with these deep-seated feelings of
weakness that Himmelstoss uses his authority to try and humiliate the troops he is supposed to train.
His lessons are not those of a tough drill sergeant trying to save men's lives in battle – rather, they are
about a man trying to exude power where he naturally has none. The men feel his weakness of
character and disrespect him, but he explodes, trying to win respect through emotional cruelties and
brutalities. We witness this process in many shades during the story.

Themes:
Identity: “ Who am I?" is the most aggressively confronted question in All Quiet on the Western Front.
Our narrator discovers his own identity as he grows from a naïve youth to a wizened front line fighter.
He defines himself in many ways, mostly relative to other people and their ideas. He lauds "salt of the
earth" type people, like his friend and mentor Kat. He is repulsed by men with no identity.
Dreams hopes and plans: In the world of All Quiet on the Western Front, we are exposed to the dreams
of men who endure months upon months of trench warfare. Conditions are abysmal and mass death is a
frequent occurrence. This violent context shapes the soldiers' – and particularly our narrator's – concept
of life and of dreams. The soldiers dream in order to keep sane and in order to stay alive. Their dreams
are not elaborate, but are, rather, tied to home, family, sex, and food.“He turns away. After a pause he
says slowly: "I wanted to become a head-forester once."

Warfare: All Quiet on the Western Front displays all of the angst central to any story about war, but it
also exposes the horrors of a new kind of war, one that allows for mass death. Machine guns had never
been used before World War I. Our narrator provides a close account of the atrocities of the war. Even
those who physically survive are victims. The soldiers must learn every detail of warfare in order to
survive.

Sacrifice: When you break down the word "sacrifice," the first part, "sacr," means sacred or holy.
Sacrifice implies a set of beliefs for which one is willing to give something up to achieve. In All Quiet on
the Western Front, the men sacrifice everything for nothing. They give up their lives for a set of ideals
that are either incomprehensible or false. The fact that they sacrifice for unknown reasons.

“We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with

feelings which, though they might be ornamented enough in peace

time, would be out of place here”.

Patriotism: patriotism is the love of one's country over all things. None of the young soldiers in All Quiet
on the Western Front are painted as patriots. Not ever. Instead they are instruments of elected or
appointed politicians or teachers who use their own stilted sense of patriotism to encourage young men
to then give their lives to defend the country. In this setting, acts of patriotic heroism are thus made
pathetic, because they are made for no positive outcome. The young soldiers fight to protect their
friends more than to protect their fatherland.

Revenge: Transgressions are made aplenty in All Quiet on the Western Front, usually in the form of an
officer or teacher abusing the trust of younger soldiers or students. Himmelstoss the postman-turned-
cruel-drill-sergeant is the most visible recipient of revenge as he was the commandant for most of the
main characters in the novel.

Mortality: The frailty and value of life is a giant theme in All Quiet on the Western Front. The author
highlights the shallow attitude of observers who think of soldiers as toys that can be lost and easily
replaced. The author spends great amounts of time describing the process of dying. Eventually, Death
becomes the greatest enemy of all. In the novel, the bravest of the brave men die, while the weakest of
men survive.

Innocence is almost an enemy in All Quiet on the Western Front – a soldier must get rid of it right away
if he wants to survive. Our narrator learns to lose his innocence quickly, mostly by observing that loss in
others around him, but also through his own experiences. And he consciously feels that loss as he
survives in the story, noting how he has become "old folk" and how separate he feels from the new
recruits entering the fray, recruits only a year or so younger than he is, but far more innocent.

“Iron Youth. Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years

old. But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk.”

Home: Paul's definition of "home" changes throughout the course of All Quiet on the Western Front. At
the beginning, Paul longs for home – his old home, the one where he grew up. Clean sheets. Mom's
cookin'. But he begins to sink deeper into the rhythm of the war. He questions whether he can ever
return home and what home really means. Home no longer exists in a house – "home" to Paul becomes
the Front.

Primitiveness:Throughout the course of All Quiet on the Western Front, we watch as soldiers fight to
both preserve their humanity and to suppress their human instincts. Humanness allows them to form
strong bonds with one another, but it also compels them to feel like hunted prey.

The Horror of War: The overriding theme of All Quiet on the Western Front is the terrible brutality
of war, which informs every scene in the novel. Whereas war novels before All Quiet on the Western
Front tended to romanticize what war was like, emphasizing ideas such as glory, honor, patriotic
duty, and adventure, All Quiet on the Western Front sets out to portray war as it was actually
experienced, replacing the romantic picture of glory and heroism with a decidedly unromantic
vision of fear, meaninglessness, and butchery.

The effect of war on the soldier: Because All Quiet on the Western Front is set among soldiers
fighting on the front, one of its main focuses is the ruinous effect that war has on the soldiers who
fight it. These men are subject to constant physical danger, as they could literally be blown to pieces
at any moment. This intense physical threat also serves as an unceasing attack on the nerves,
forcing soldiers to cope with primal, instinctive fear during every waking moment. Additionally, the
soldiers are forced to live in appalling conditions—in filthy, waterlogged ditches full of rats and
decaying corpses and infested with lice. They frequently go without food and sleep, adequate
clothing, or sufficient medical care. They are forced, moreover, to deal with the frequent, sudden
deaths of their close friends and comrades, often in close proximity and in extremely violent
fashion. Remarque portrays the overall effect of these conditions as a crippling overload of panic
and despair. The only way for soldiers to survive is to disconnect themselves from their feelings,
suppressing their emotions and accepting the conditions of their lives.
Symbolism:
Iron: In the book we hear the term "The Iron Youth" used to describe Paul's generation. "The Iron
Youth" is an ideal of a strong Fatherland-lovin' group of young soldiers who enlist and fight in the war as
a way of showing pride for Germany and its history.
The River: The guys gather at the river's edge and swim naked across to a home apparently rented by a
bunch of French women. The river is a natural break between the land of brutality and gunshots and the
land of…well, good stuff.

Kemmerich's Boots: Boots kill whoever wears them; or at least whoever wears them dies. They are more
sought after than human life and they outlive those who wear them. Müller is the first to yearn for them,
eyeing their sturdy soles, while their owner, Kemmerich, dies a long and painful death.

Religion: Where there is war, there is death, and where there is lots of death, we would expect a
discussion of higher powers and afterlife. However, there aren't many religious symbols to speak of in this
story.Mortality deals with the very heading in the novel.

Quiet: Paul, our narrator, dies on a quiet day, when not much is going on in terms of war stuff. He
endures the noise, and falls on a day when it would be easy to survive. One could say that the quiet kills
him, or one could say that he chooses to die surrounded by quiet. The adjective "quiet" is used to describe
lots of different things in this novel, but it is almost always associated with peace and calm and with all
things that the war is not.

Nature: The Earth is painted as a living thing that is accosted and then destroyed by bombs and blood. It
both comforts and shelters characters from the assault of weapons raining from above. The land is
retooled by men to be abrasive, limiting, closed. Witness the scars of trenches dug into otherwise pastoral
hills and the skin-cutting barbed wire fencing drawn between lines.

Rats: Paul and his friends are being attacked from all directions – bullets fly at them from the Front and
rats gnaw on them in the trenches. There is no safety. They seem to represent the ugly side of nature, the
side that would eat a dog, a cat, or a man if need be. There's no safety, no peace, no quiet when rats are
around. They crawl on the soldiers' faces in search of their food, and they eat the dead bodies.

Work cited.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/allquiet/context.html

http://www.shmoop.com/all-quiet-on-western-front/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Maria_Remarque

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/67079/All-Quiet-on-the-Western-Front/articles.html

http://www.academia.edu/189503/The_contribution_of_All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front_t
o_our_understanding_of_psychological_trauma