All Quiet on the Western Front
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 1958 paperback edition |
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| Author | Erich Maria Remarque |
|---|---|
| Original title | Im Westen nichts Neues |
| Translator | A. W. Wheen (1929 edition) |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Genre(s) | War Novel |
| Publisher | Ballantine Books |
| Publication date | 1929 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 304 pp |
| ISBN | 0-449-21394-3 |
| Followed by | The Road Back |
All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues) is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I, about the horrors of that war and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the front. The book was first published in German as Im Westen nichts Neues in January 1929. It sold 2.5 million copies in twenty-five languages in its first eighteen months in print.[1] In 1930 the book was turned into an Oscar-winning movie of the same name, directed by Lewis Milestone.
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[edit] Title and translation
The 1929 English translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen gives the title as All Quiet on the Western Front. The literal translation is "Nothing New in the West" (Im Westen nichts Neues), with "West" being the war front; this was a routine dispatch used by the German Army.
Brian Murdoch's 1994 translation would render the phrase as "there was nothing new to report on the western front" within the narrative. Explaining his retention of the original book-title, he says:
- Although it does not match the German exactly (there is a different kind of irony in the literal version...), Wheen's title has justly become part of the English language and is retained here with gratitude.
Separately, the phrase "all quiet on the western front" later became popular slang for a lack of action (in reference to the Phoney War in World War II's Western Front).
[edit] Major Characters
[edit] Paul Bäumer
Paul Bäumer is the narrator, and the main character of the novel, whom Remarque uses to magnify his own experience in World War I. Aged only 19, Bäumer, who is an amateur writer of several poems and a play, is persuaded by his schoolmaster, Kantorek, to enlist in the German Army for World War I. He is deployed to the western front, where he experiences the devastating physical and psychological effects of intense combat, including the horrific wounding or death of his comrades and close friends. During the events related, Bäumer frequently contemplates about the war and witnesses the dehumanizing conditions of combat and how the soldiers are being robbed of their individuality and love of life.
Bäumer dies at the end of the novel, in October 1918, and it is suggested that he is killed by poison gas. At the time of his death, the western front was so quiet that the army dispatches for the day read that there was nothing new to report from the western front, thus referring to the book's German title. In the novel's adaptations for films, Bäumer was killed either while reaching for a butterfly (film) or drawing a bird (television movie).
[edit] Albert Kropp
Perhaps Paul's closest friend, Kropp was in his class at school and is described as the clearest thinker of the group. Kropp is wounded towards the end of the novel and undergoes a double trans femoral amputation. Both he and Bäumer end up spending time in a Catholic hospital together, Bäumer suffering a shrapnel wound to the leg and arm. Though Kropp initially plans to commit suicide if he requires an amputation, the book suggests he eventually decides against it. Kropp and Bäumer part ways when Bäumer is recalled to his regiment after recovering.
[edit] Haie Westhus
Haie is described as being tall and strong, slightly older than Bäumer, and a peat-digger by profession. Haie also has a good sense of humor. During combat, he is fatally injured at his back — the resulting wound is large enough for Paul to see Haie's breathing lung, and he dies from his injuries soon after .
[edit] Stanislaus Katczinsky
Also known as Kat. He has the most positive influence on Paul and his comrades on the battlefield. Katczinsky worked as a cobbler in civilian life; he is older than Paul Bäumer and his comrades, and serves as their leadership figure. He also represents a literary model highlighting the differences between the younger and older soldiers. While the older men have already had a life of professional and personal experience before the war, Bäumer and the men of his age have had only little life experience and time for personal growth. When Katczinsky is killed, it is as though a great hero has died.
Kat is also well known for his ability to source nearly any item needed, such as, and above all, food. At one point he secures four boxes of lobsters. Bäumer describes Kat as possessing a sixth sense. Further examples for Kat's skill in obtaining valuable goods are provided throughout the book. One night, Bäumer along with a group of other soldiers are holed up in a factory neither with rations nor with comfortable bedding. Katczinsky leaves for a short while, returning with straw to put over the bare wires of the beds. Later, to feed his hungry men, Kat retrieves bread, a bag of horse meat, a lump of fat, a pinch of salt, and a pan in which to cook the food.
Kat is shot in the leg at the end of the story, just before Bäumer himself is killed. Bäumer carries him back to camp on his back, only to discover upon their arrival that a shell fragment had hit Kat in the head and killed him on the way. He is thus the last of Paul's close friends to die in battle. It is Kat's death that eventually makes Bäumer realize that he does not care anymore if he himself will die in battle or not, and that he can face the rest of his life without fear, that the coming years "...can take nothing from me. They can take nothing more..."
[edit] Minor characters
[edit] Kantorek
Kantorek was the schoolmaster of Paul and his friends, including Kropp, Leer, and Müller. Behaving "in a way that cost [him] nothing," Kantorek is a strong supporter of the war and coerces Bäumer and other students in his class to join the war effort. Among twenty enlistees was Joseph Behm, the first of the class to die in battle — in an example of tragic irony, Behm was the only one who did not want to sacrifice his life in the line of duty. Remarque uses the figure of Kantorek to make a point about the usefulness of a person's education in the real world. In a twist of fate, Kantorek is later called up as a soldier as well. He very reluctantly joins the ranks of his former students, only to be grilled and taunted by Mittelstädt, one of the students he had earlier persuaded to enlist. Kantorek is an example of someone with immoral double standards who is filled with blind patriotism, encouraging others to enlist to fight for their country while being too cowardly to enlist himself.
[edit] Bertink
Lieutenant Bertink, often referred to as the company commander, is the leader of Bäumer's company. His men have a great respect for him, and Bertink has great fondness for his men. He permits them to eat the rations of the men that had been killed in action, standing up to the chef who would only allow them their allotted share. Bertink is genuinely despondent when he learns that few of his men had survived an engagement. Bertink kills an enemy team of flamethrowers intent on killing all of his men. He is however shot in the chest while doing so, and soon after is also hit in the chin by a shell fragment that kills him.
[edit] Müller
Müller is about 19 years of age, and one of Bäumer's classmates, when he also joins the German army as a volunteer to go to the war. Carrying his old school books with him to the battlefield, he constantly reminds himself of the importance of learning and education. Even while under enemy fire, he "mutters propositions in physics." He became interested in Kemmerich's boots and inherits them when Kemmerich dies early in the novel.
[edit] Himmelstoss
Remarque's portrayal of Himmelstoss easily raises the ire of the reader. He is a power-hungry corporal with special contempt for Paul and his friends, taking sadistic pleasure in punishing the minor infractions of his trainees during their basic training in preparation for their deployment. However, Bäumer and his comrades have a chance to get back at Himmelstoss, mercilessly whipping him on the night before they board trains to go to the front. Himmelstoss later joins them at the front, revealing himself as a coward who shirks his duties for fear to get hurt or killed, and pretends to be wounded because of a scratch on his face. Bäumer beats him and when a lieutenant comes along looking for men for a trench charge, Himmelstoss joins and leads the charge. He carries Haie Westhus' body to Bäumer after he is fatally wounded. Matured and repentant through his experiences Himmelstoss later asks for forgiveness from his previous charges. As he becomes the new staff cook, to prove his friendship he secures two pounds of sugar for Bäumer and half a pound of butter for Tjaden.
[edit] Detering
He was a farmer who loved his farms. He went mad when he saw a cherry blossom, which reminded him of home too much and inspired him to leave. He was found and court-martialled for deserting, and is never heard of again. He was especially fond of horses and was angered at those who used horses in the war. "It is of the vilest baseness to use horses in the war," he says.
[edit] Josef Hamacher
Hamacher is a patient at the Catholic hospital where Paul and Albert Kropp are temporarily stationed. He has an intimate knowledge of the workings of the hospital. He also has a "shooting license," certifying him as sporadically not responsible for his actions, though all evidence points to his being quite sane.
[edit] Franz Kemmerich
Kemmerich had enlisted in the army for WWI along with his best friend and classmate, Bäumer. Kemmerich is shot in the leg early in the story; his injured leg had to be amputated, and he dies shortly thereafter. In anticipation of Kemmerich's imminent death, Müller was eager to get his boots. While in hospital, the doctors took Kemmerich's watch from him, causing him great distress, prompting him to ask about his watch every time his friends came to visit him in the hospital.
[edit] References
- ^ Eksteins, Modris (April 1980). "All Quiet on the Western Front and the Fate of a War". Journal of Contemporary History 15 (2): 353. SAGE Publications. doi:10.1177/002200948001500207.
