All Quiet Final Revised Essay

All Quiet Final Revised Essay

Question: Show how the meaning of life and the chance of death hangs over the soldiers heads during the war.

        All Quiet shows the importance of purity and the corruption of youth. Running from Death on a day to day basis, and relying on luck to stay alive, Remarque shows us how war has only one outcome for soldiers like Paul, to lose their souls, because they no longer have anything to live for.

        Paul and the other soldiers live in a world of suspense, never knowing when each footstep could be their last, “The front is a cage in which we must await fearfully whatever may happen. We lie under the network of arching shells and live in a suspense of uncertainty.” (101) they walk with fear of a new day. “Over us, Chance hovers. If a shot comes, we can duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where it will fall.” Chance is capitalized as if it’s a name of someone who can either help or hurt them. The soldiers depend on Chance to get them through everyday. Paul leaves a dugout one day to visit some friends in another dugout, he later returns to the previous one only to find that it had been blown to bits. With the battlefield often looking like an impossible obstacle course of weapons and destruction the men soon learn how great of a blessing it is for them to live another day.

        Sometimes the image of death is put right in front of them, sometimes on purpose, “On the way we pass a shelled school-house. Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of resin, and pine, and forest. There are at least a hundred.” (99) the horrific image in front of them is unforgettable and terrifying. The thought of all those tiny lives suddenly coming to an end is unthinkable, yet the soldiers make comments like “They’re for us...” and “You be thankful if you get so much as a coffin...” that puts thoughts of wondering when death will succeed them running through their heads.

        Remarque reminds us all of the chance the soldiers take every day by putting their lives at stake, and the many encounters of near death experiences.The soldiers accept the fact that they might not make it to tomorrow, they feel the truth of their comrades falling one by one before them, and they hope to see the truth of tomorrow, “But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.” (101)