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In Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front", the main character Paul Baumer who is 18 years old, is sent to the western front along with his classmates to fight against France for his homeland, Germany. He and his friends go through a range of typical war experiences: the death of a comrade, the terror of gunfire, the abuse by their officers. Remarque as well as Paul hates everything about the war: its worthlessness, the lives of young people that it destroys or the innocent people that it kills. Throughout the whole book, the author depicts this hatred in many different ways.
The most common way Remarque shows his hatred is by using the scheme of the novel. He often does this by describing the death of Paul's close friends or by describing the sickness of his mother. A good example of this is the death of Paul's friend Kemmerich. It can be felt how terrible the death of innocent people is while reading Kemmerich's response to Paul convincing him that he will survive the operation, "I don't think so." Remarque now uses phrases to chow how not cool is the war in reality.
Another way of displaying hatred is by describing the gunfire, the hundreds of dead bodies left on the battlefield or the No Man’s Land. "The deadly sound of gas-shells mingles with the crashes of the high explosives. A bell sounds between the explosions, gongs and metal warn everyone -Gas - Gas - Gas", (p.65). The horrors of the war which some people say can't be described are visualized in this sentence to precise details, and so creating a setting that speaks for itself. Even without any plot and characters it would still be as terrifying and would still show Remarque's hate. Remarque's style is also very important in describing his hatred. His style is actually a mix of many different styles. He uses a lot of figurative language and many soldier jargon words, which help the reader to understand the soldier’s life better. Remarque is a very descriptive and poetic writer.
"The flesh melts, the forehead bulges more prominently, the cheekbones protrude” (pg. 31). Remarque uses a lot of this kind of descriptions which produces a lot more impact on the reader and gives the events in the plot a lot more importance. Remarque also uses his own life experiences in the novel. The book produces much more impact on the reader after he knows that a considerable amount of it is true and autobiographic. Remarque uses an episode from his own life to describe Kemmerich's death. "Muller explains that he has a flesh wound in his thigh" (p.14) This sentence has much more impact on the reader, because after knowing that this episode is autobiographical the reader understands that these things do happen in real life, they are not a myth and are not exaggerated by the author. They want Kemmerich’s boots after his death.
Remarque was one of the first people to speak out against war. He was the first who spoke openly, who showed that war is nothing to be proud of, who showed that war kills... but not the people who started it. It kills innocent young people who don't even know the purpose of war. Remarque's anti-war novel became one of the best ones if not the best one. It showed to those who didn't fight how horrible and uncivilized the war is.
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