Quiet on the Western Front
Quiet on the Western FrontI read All Quiet on the Western Front and viewed
the movie. Both the film and the novel show the
horror of trench warfare and the drawbacks of
unquestioning patriotism. Both the film and the
novel follow the same plot but emphasize different
aspects.
The beginning of both the movie and the novel
start off saying. “This story is neither an
accusation nor a confession, and least of all an
adventure for death is not an adventure to those
who stand face to face with it. [This story] will
try simply to tell of a generation of men who,
even though they may have escaped its shells were
destroyed by the war…This line is a precursor of
what is to come.
All Quiet on the Western Front movie directed by
Lewis Milestone and the novel by Erich Remarque
tells what happens to a group of German teenagers
during World War I. In this novel some very deep
feelings come from the soldiers point of view. The
story centers around Paul Baumer, the main
character. Paul is the protagonist of the novel
who changes from a soft young man to a hardened
soldier. He and his classmates had patriotically
marched off for recruitment, led on by their
teacher, Kantorek. However, they soon find that
war is not as glorious as everyone thinks it is.
The soldiers soon endure a life in the
rat-infested trenches with very few food rations.
Throughout the novel and the movie Paul focuses
mainly on trying to stay alive and is constantly
worrying whether his friends will survive. There
is a strong serious tone present in the novel. The
theme of how the war destroyed the generation is
brought up many times. In the movie this theme is
not brought up as much as in the book. There is
struggle with death for the soldiers. There is a
struggle to survive, and also to deal with the
death of their comrades and those around them. A
great deal of the setting of the novel and the
movie takes place on the battlefield or in the
trenches. Paul and his fellow soldiers live day to
day dodging bullets, bombardments, and gas
attacks. There are constant numbers of maimed
corpses and injured men.
“I search around. And so it is. Here hang bits of
uniform, and somewhere else is plastered a bloody
mess that was once a human limb. Over there lies a
body with nothing but a piece of the underpants on
one leg and the collar of the tunic around its
neck”(123)
Paul returned home for a few weeks on leave. His
books no longer meant anything to him. The war
changed, and destroyed the generation of men. Paul
could no longer deal with being in society. His
home was out on the front, with his family that
was being constantly torn apart. His mother was
dying from an illness and he did not have many
opportunities to go home and see her. This is just
a quick scene in the movie while in the book it is
very important. At the end of the novel, the few
men who did survive were either crippled, maimed,
or mentally ruined. This is very believable, both
in the movie and the novel. The ending...
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