Quiet on the Western Front

¶ … Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel written by German veteran of World War One Erich Maria Remarque which details the physical and psychological pressures experienced by a group of soldiers in war. For the most part, Remarque's novel is an anti-war story which focuses on the hardships and losses encountered by the soldiers in the trenches. It also describes the detachment the soldiers felt towards their former, civilian lives, and all those things that were considered important before experiencing the horrors of the war. In order to describe the various feelings and experiences of the frontline soldiers to the average person reading the novel, Remarque used a number of literary devices in order to express the multitude of emotions involved in warfare. One particular literary device that Remarque used is called a "metaphor," and can be defined as a comparison in which one thing is said to be like something else. In chapter 11, Remarque described the experience of war as a "polar expedition [in which] every expression of life must serve only the preservation of existence, and is absolutely focused on that. All else is banished because it would consume energies unnecessarily." (Remarque 273)

This particular use of the literary device called metaphor is especially important to the reader's understanding of the story because it describes to the reader what the soldier must do emotionally in order to survive. It is not only the physical expressions of life that have to be limited to survival, but emotional ones as well. It is true that Remarque is attempting to describe how a soldier survives in the trenches, he must be physically prepared for the horrors and physical hardships that he will experience. The noise, the explosions, the constant threat of being harmed, the lack of food, sleep, and other physical requirements will all take a physical toll on an individual soldier. If a soldier is to survive, Remarque is telling the reader what he must do. Every single movement, sound, and action must be solely performed because it will the soldier in his survival. There is no time for unnecessary or frivolous actions, no play time, or joke time, there is only survival time.

But it is not only physically that a soldier must be prepared and act solely for survival, but also mentally as well. A soldier cannot daydream, long for home, reflect on the past, or even lose his concentration for even a split second. When a soldier loses his focus on survival, he dies. One who exists in the trenches cannot dream of a life after the war, or even their life before the war, while fighting in the trenches, the soldier must exist solely in the trenches, accept his life in the trenches, and deal with it as it is. The soldier has no past, no future, only the present exists, and it is a present where he is in a struggle to survive. Friends, family, home, wives and girlfriends must not exist for a soldier in the trenches. The front line is a place where danger is all around and if one loses sight of it, they can end up dead. This is how war is like a polar expedition, it is a constant struggle to survive, and one cannot let up for even a moment.