All Quiet on the Western Front

In Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque uses a 20th century writing technique of jumping from one idea to another for each chapter rather than a chronological story-line. This enhances the story telling by making each chapter emphasize the theme of the book-that war is a gruesome thing. If the book was written chronologically that emphasis would not be as great and direct. The reader would have many aspects of the war scene stories going on at one time rather than focusing on one aspect of World War 1 at a time, and making each war story as complete and gruesome as possible.

Remarque also uses imagery interestingly to push the main idea of the novel - that War is a gruesome thing. In the past, historically, war was a romantic and noble thing. This book's gruesome and disgusting imagery paints a realistic image in the readers' minds, thus destroying that historical misconception of war. Remarque even conveys this through some of the dialog. When Paul Baumer is talking to civilians, he never tells anyone of the gruesomeness of war. Furthermore, many civilians just want to talk to Paul so that they feel special for talking to a soldier-eluding to the war conceptions of the past. It is also interesting how Remarque ends the book with the idea that Paul is happier having been killed within one month of the end of the war than he would have been if he survived, because he has no life to return to after the mentally corrupting war.