The Lost Generation Theme in All Quiet on the Western Front Essay Example

Remarque’s purpose in writing the book All Quiet on the Western Front was to inform the readers about “the lost generation” by writing the book in the first-person point of view so they can understand what the soldiers experienced while they were fighting at war. In the book, Remarque explains that the lost generation is not just the millions of people who have died in the war but also the millions of soldiers who returned from the war with PTSD and other psychological damage that affected the rest of their lives. Remarque also uses figurative language to enhance her writing and help the readers understand how hard the trench life was for the WWI soldiers. 

Most soldiers in the book who were new to the war were very young. Most of them had just graduated high school and some were in their early 20’s. However, this meant that most of them had nothing to go home to other than their parents and because they had no one to go home to. Most of the young soldiers felt very uncomfortable leaving the war and considered the war front and trenches their home. As a result of Remarque writing the book in the first person, the readers are able to understand how lost the soldiers feel. They feel uncomfortable when they go home on leave but they are also in miserable and bad conditions when they are fighting at war. In the book, Paul states, “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.” (Remarque 263). This quote shows how the young soldiers are part of the lost generation because they have no life other than fighting in a war that is so damaging to them both mentally and physically.

Remarque also explains in the book how hard it is for the families who have sons, daughters, or husbands who are fighting in the war. In chapter seven Paul has to visit Kemmerich’s mother to tell her the news about her son. This was heart-shattering news to her, however, Paul doesn’t even tell her the full story because he doesn’t want her to mourn about the way her son died for the rest of her life. Remarque writes, “I tell her he was shot through the heart and died instantaneously. She looks at me, she doubts me: "You lie. I know better. I have felt how terribly he died. I have heard his voice at night, I have felt his anguish--tell the truth, I want to know it, I must know it,"( Remarque # ). Paul knows how hard it is to watch someone die a long painful death because he watched Kemmerich die, so he decided to tell Kemmerichs mother that Kemmerich died instantly and painless. Even though his decision might not have been the right thing to do he was saving her from pain that could have affected the rest of her life. Remarque also shows how the soldiers are almost numb to death. After Paul broke the news to Kemmerich’s mother he thought, “When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over a single individual,”(Remarque #). This quote shows how Remarque uses the first-person point of view so the readers understand how a soldier feels at war because, Paul showed very little emotion and had a very short amount of grieving time after one of his best friends died because he had been on the front for so long and he had been around thousands of men dying.

Remarque also uses figurative language to explain the horrible effects of war on the soldiers. In the book, Paul says “To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool,” (Remarque 55). This quote explains how the soldiers at war were part of “the lost generation”. Paul compares the war front to a whirlpool because when you are caught in a whirlpool it is almost impossible to escape and you ultimately get sucked to the middle and die. Paul thought the war front was like a whirlpool because once he chose to start in the war there is no way that he could leave. The conditions are also so bad that Paul fights through the war knowing that death is near and there is not much he can do to avoid it. Finally, even if the soldiers don’t die they are still stuck in the whirlpool of war because they leave with lots of psychological trauma and PTSD and they will never be the same person they were before they left for war and they will be living with these negative effects of war for the rest of their lives. 

To conclude Remarque’s purpose in writing the book All Quiet on the Western Front is to put the readers in the shoes of a soldier while they are at war he explains all of the struggles they go through in and off the war front. Remarque accomplishes this by making Paul the narrator of the book, so you are reading about the war from the perspective of a brand new soldier who did not know what he was getting into because he wanted to fight for his country and not going to war at his age was considered disrespectful.