In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque writes about the inner thoughts of a young man, named Paul. After being encouraged by a teacher, Paul and his friends sign up for the army. At first, all of them are excited and patriotic about being big bad soldiers, but after they have spent time on the front, they start to change their minds about war. As time goes on Paul is starting to have emotional problems with the thought of war, what war is really about, and about his old life. He starts to see his enemy as people just like him having identities, no longer as enemies. He realizes that they want to be at war just as much as him, not at all. He also does not understand how war comes about and why countries go to war. Although, Paul had dreams before going to war, but after the terrible encounters he is accustomed to, he does not know what he will do after war, because he cannot image life without war. Paul sees his friends die off one by one, and it starts eating at him. In the end, he shuts off his emotions to pull through. I think the point of writing this book was to show what goes through the mind of a soldier, and how it affects them.
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