All Quiet on the Western Front Essay Example for Free

All Quiet on the Western Front Essay Lost Generation – (young boys leaving school and going to war for their country) (Page 85) ‘’That’s what set us apart and made our parents’ world a little difficult for us to understand; because somehow we were always gently bound up with that world, submissive to it all, and the smallest thing led us onwards along the path of eternity. Perhaps it was just the privilege of our youth – we were not yet able to see any restrictions, and we could not admit to ourselves that things would ever come to an end; expectation was in our blood, and this meant that we were at one with our lives as the days went by. ’ (Page 85) ‘’Now we would wander around like strangers in those landscapes of our youth. We have been consumed in the fires of reality, we perceive differences only in the way tradesmen do, and we see necessities like butchers. We are free of care no longer – we are terrifying indifferent. We might be present in that world, but would we be alive in it? We are like children who have been abandoned and we are as experienced as old men, we are coarse, unhappy and superficial – I think that we are lost. ’’ (Wikipedia) Almost to a man, the young men are moved to join the army. The young enlistees are shown in basic training, aching for action fighting in the war. -Soldiers are referred to ‘young soldiers’ all the time, because young men, almost boys even, are sent to war. They leave school and are sent to fight for their country. (Internet) ‘’Arriving in training camp, the young boys expect war to be a great lark’’ * The boys were so young and unaware, they didn’t know what to expect from the war, but they thought it was going to be great fun and were very unaware of anything that was going to happen. They were happy to be going away, fighting for their country, they thought they were becoming men by doing this. (Internet) ‘’each young and impressionable, are recruited and trained to fight for the glory of the fatherland. ’’ (-George McGovern) ‘’Im fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. ’’ Peer pressure. Some young boys don’t want to go to war but because all of their friends are going they get persuaded by peer ressure and by teachers, that fighting for their country would be a great duty and if they didn’t, they would be seen as a coward in their hometown. (Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 1) Yes, thats the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantoreks! Iron Youth! Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? That is long ago. We are old folk. (Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 10)I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. (Book)‘’When we went to the District Commandant to enlist, we were a class of twenty young men, many of whom proudly shaved for the first time before going to the barracks. We had no definite plans for our future. Our thoughts for a career and occupation were as yet of too unpractical a character to furnish any scheme of life. We were still crammed with vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also, an ideal and almost romantic character. ’’