Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

All Quiet on the Western Front is a compelling novel. It’s unique in that it offers the western world an opportunity to view World War 2 from a Germans eyes. The purpose of the novel is to show an ordinary German soldiers’ perspective on war and not to make a moral judgement on the ethics of war. What makes this novel even more so unique is that the author, Erich Maria Remarque, was a German Veteran of the war himself. In this essay, the following issues that the novel brings up will be discussed from the point of view of the main character Paul Baumer in respective order: Routines, the Horrors of war and its effects, and Realistic Descriptions. Routines played a major part in this novel. They were frequently described and they came in all forms. Some of the most common of these were routines such as toilet habits, smoking, getting food, spare time activities, and flirting. When the soldiers’ toilet habits were described, it was described in such a manner that it was made to seem that the toilets were a social “hangout” for the soldiers. They all sat there for hours on end talking with each other about such things as their dreams, hopes, hobbies, past experiences, etc. The soldiers regarded the toilets as the most rel