AQ from Seth Thill

   In All Quiet On The Western Front, author Erich Ramarque, rather than going in chronological order with each chapter, frequently jumps around to different time periods in the soldiers' tour of duty. This helps highlight the main aspects of war, rather than having a lot of filler pages that are less important to the plot, as you may have with a typical book in chronological order. This technique also helps symbolize the uncertainty of war. The novel ha a very dark tone and its main focus is the dehumanization of the average soldier when he is out on the frontlines. The narrator, Paul, often describes how he and his fellow soldiers really live only to avoid death while in war. They have been stripped down to their simplest animal instincts so they can survive. Paul consistently points out that he does not even know what he would do after the war, claiming he no longer has any goals. When Paul returns home on leave, he realizes that he sees nothing the same way he did before, and now looks at everything through the jaded eyes of a soldier, further solidifying his fear of his future after the war. The book concludes as grim as it ever had been, some time after the death of Paul's closest friend Ka, Paul dies peacefully in battle, and it explains that he almost looked relieved as he died.