Themes (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes
Themes
Understanding themes in literature
Themes represent the fundamental and often universal ideas that an author explores throughout a literary work.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque examines several powerful themes that reveal the devastating reality of the First World War and its impact on those who fought in it. These themes work together to create a comprehensive picture of war's true nature and its effects on human beings.
The horror of war
The dominant theme running throughout All Quiet on the Western Front is the horrific violence and devastating cruelty of war, which shapes every scene in the novel. Before this work was published, war novels typically portrayed conflict in an idealised manner, emphasising concepts such as glory, honour, patriotic duty and adventure. However, Remarque's novel depicts the true nature of war as chaotic, inglorious and murderous.
Remarque's novel represents a revolutionary shift in war literature—moving from romanticised portrayals that emphasised heroism to a starkly realistic depiction of fear, meaninglessness and slaughter.
The novel captures the overwhelming terror and savagery of warfare with an unrelenting focus on both the physical and psychological harm it inflicts. Remarque presents war's catastrophic levels of slaughter and violence through descriptions of battles lasting months, along with disturbing new technological developments in weaponry.
New Warfare Technology
The First World War introduced unprecedented killing methods that transformed combat:
- Machine guns enabled rapid, mass casualties
- Poison gas created indiscriminate, agonising deaths
- Tanks made warfare more impersonal and mechanical
These innovations made killing more efficient and impersonal than ever before in human history, fundamentally transforming how mankind understood military conflict.
Through vivid and often graphic depictions, Remarque dramatises these aspects of the First World War. By the novel's conclusion, nearly every major character has died, demonstrating the war's annihilating effect on the generation of young men compelled to fight in it. This wholesale destruction emphasises how profoundly WWI altered society's perception of warfare.
Exam tip: When writing about this theme, support your arguments with specific examples of violence and death from the novel. Consider how Remarque's realistic approach differs from earlier, more romantic war literature.
The effect of war on the soldier
Since All Quiet on the Western Front unfolds among soldiers fighting on the front lines, one of its primary concerns is the devastating effect that warfare has on those who experience it directly. These men face constant physical danger, knowing they could literally be blown to pieces at any moment. The threat of death haunts them continuously, with unceasing attacks on their nerves during every waking hour.
Beyond the danger, soldiers must endure appalling living conditions. They occupy filthy, waterlogged ditches infested with rats, surrounded by decaying corpses and plagued by lice. The men frequently lack adequate food, sleep, proper clothing or sufficient medical care. Moreover, they must cope with the frequent, sudden deaths of close friends and comrades, often witnessed in close proximity and in extremely violent circumstances.
The Crushing Burden of Combat
The cumulative effect of these conditions creates a crushing burden of panic and despair. Soldiers face:
- Constant mortal danger and the threat of being killed at any moment
- Appalling living conditions in rat-infested, waterlogged trenches
- Deprivation of basic necessities: food, sleep, medical care
- Witnessing the violent deaths of close comrades in their immediate proximity
Remarque portrays the only means for soldiers to survive as detaching themselves from their feelings, suppressing their emotions and accepting their circumstances. However, this emotional disconnection has a profoundly damaging effect on a soldier's humanity.
The Cost of Survival
Emotional disconnection serves as a survival mechanism, but it comes at a terrible price. Paul Bäumer exemplifies this dehumanising process:
- He becomes unable to imagine any future beyond the war
- He cannot recall how he felt in the past
- He loses his capacity to communicate with his family during his leave home
This demonstrates how the very mechanism that keeps soldiers alive strips away their humanity and identity.
Soldiers no longer pause to mourn fallen friends and comrades. When Kemmerich lies on his deathbed at the novel's beginning, the most pressing concern among his friends is who will inherit his boots. This stark detail illustrates how completely war has numbed the soldiers' emotional responses.
Despite this emotional numbing, Remarque depicts intense bonds of loyalty and friendship that develop among the living soldiers as a direct result of their shared experience of war. These feelings represent the only romanticised element of the novel and virtually the only emotions that preserve the soldiers' fundamental humanity.
Nationalism and political power
The primary trigger for the First World War was the ethic of nationalism—the belief that competing nation-states represented a fundamental aspect of existence, that one owed primary loyalty to one's nation, and that one's national identity formed the principal component of one's overall identity. Whilst nationalism was not new, it had reached unprecedented levels of intensity during the nineteenth century, and this fervour generally extended into the outbreak of WWI.
Remarque's Critique of Nationalism
Through its depiction of war's horror, All Quiet on the Western Front presents a severe criticism of nationalism, revealing it as an empty, deceptive belief system. Remarque portrays nationalism as a tool wielded by those in power to control a nation's population.
Paul and his friends are initially drawn to join the army by nationalist ideas, but their experience of combat quickly teaches them nationalism's irrelevance when confronted with war's horrors. The relative worthlessness of the self-proclaimed patriots Kantorek and Himmelstoss on the battlefield emphasises the inappropriateness of outdated ideals in modern warfare.
Fighting for Survival, Not Glory
Remarque demonstrates that soldiers on the front lines:
- Fight not for their nation's glory but rather for their own survival
- Kill to avoid being killed themselves
- Do not regard opposing armies as their genuine enemies
- Understand that the men in power within their own nation are the true adversaries of the common soldier
These powerful figures sacrifice soldiers to enhance their own power and glory, making them more dangerous than any enemy combatant.
Furthermore, Paul and his friends come to recognise that those who claim to have sacrificed the soldiers to the war simply to enhance their own power and glory are the true enemies of ordinary soldiers, not the men fighting in opposing trenches.
Exam tip: When discussing this theme, explore how Remarque uses characters like Kantorek and Himmelstoss to criticise those who promote nationalist ideas without experiencing war's reality.
Remember!
Key Themes and Takeaways:
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Remarque's novel revolutionised war literature by rejecting romanticised portrayals and presenting the horrific reality of combat, including unprecedented carnage and new deadly technology.
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Soldiers must emotionally disconnect from their feelings to survive, but this survival mechanism profoundly damages their humanity, leaving them unable to connect with their past, future or families.
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Bonds of loyalty and friendship among soldiers represent the only positive emotions in the novel, preserving some element of humanity amidst the destruction.
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Remarque provides a harsh criticism of nationalism, exposing it as an empty ideology used by the powerful to manipulate ordinary people into war for their own gain.
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The true enemies of common soldiers are not opposing armies but rather the men in power within their own nations who sacrifice young lives for personal glory and political advantage.