All Quiet on the Western Front Review

All Quiet on the Western Front Review

All quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is one of the most well-known war novels. This book wrote based on World War I event that soldiers fought with a new type of warfare, trench warfare. The book has received many critiques from the public. For example, Michael Copper reviewed about the novel, “It was a book written to reflect the human cost of war. It shows us how war has a hidden face that most people do not see until it is too late” (Copper par.1).  This novel unlike other war novel because it shows realism about the war in the novel. It also shows cost of war in terms of human and property. The novel expresses many images and symbols in the Novel. Michael Copper state in his review, “The pair of boots and the fact that it was passed around so often tells us that death was a very common occurrence during the war and that the soldiers wanted to use everything they could find in order to aid their chances of survival” (Copper par.3).  The author uses material and thing in the novel to compare and show audiences how costly the war is. The novel’s major theme state by Michael Copper:

The major theme of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front is that war must be avoided at all cost because of the severe consequences that will arise. War causes people to lose friends, makes people worried and creates a feeling of uncertainty among innocent people. War also creates hatred among people. (Copper par.4)

This quote shows audiences about the theme of the novel that human should avoid using war as solution to resolve any problems because war created massive loss for either winner or loser. War create negative atmosphere in society that hardly avoid during the war period. This novel shows audience how negative of the war for society. People, especially ordinary people and soldiers, suffer hardness from several problems such as starvation, poor sanitation, and relocation. The author also uses distinct technique to show conditions of the war in his novel. Dosomething.org state about violence and the terror of war:

                The most prominent aspect of the novel is Remarque’s raw accounts of war rather than any kind of romanticism. The reader is supposed to understand the conditions and intense traumas of such fighting, including: Rats feast on the bodies and appendages of fallen soldiers, Heavy combat unearths corpses in a graveyard while soldiers fall dead next to them, Mueller is shot by a flare gun in the stomach, Combat and resulting injury leaves Haie’s lung exposed, and A splinter strikes Kat in the head, killing him while in Paul’s arms. (Book Review Par.7)

Review by several sources show us that war is brutal, harm, and harsh. We as human should avoid war for solution between nations because it suffer human in term of mental and health. Finally, either winner or loser will lose their wealth, population, and peace.

Michael Copper state in his review about his personal feeling of the novel,

“I think the novel All Quiet on the Western Front is a well told story, mixing both fiction and non-fiction into a powerful novel which forces people to think deeply about war and all of its possible repercussions” (Copper par.5).  I agree with this quote by Michael Copper because this novel is well told story that I could see how terrible the war is, and I also learns war is not a good solution for human to use as solution.

Works Cited

Copper, Michael. “All Quiet on the Western Front – A Book Review.” Rev. of All Quiet on the Western

Front by Erich Maria Remarque. EzineArticles. 20 Oct. 2005: 6 pars. 12 Oct. 2011.

<http://EzineArticles.com/84991>

“Book Review: All Quiet on the Western Front.” Rev. of All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria

Remarque. Dosomething.org. 15 pars. 12 Oct. 2011.

<http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/book-review-all-quiet-western-front>