All Quiet on the Western Front: An essay discussing the theme of comraderie.

Throughout the dark and horrifying pictures of death and inhumanity, Erich Remarque scatters a profound brilliance, a redeeming quality, in one of the greatest war novels of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front. During this stirring novel, 20-year-old Paul Bäumer, a German soldier of World War I, was thrown into a frenzied world of blood and bombardment, flung pitilessly into the vile world of war. Nonetheless, the senseless battle …

…comrades. Never had we seen him more doleful than when he said, "Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone and so without hope that I can confront them without fear" (295). He no longer had comrades; he no longer had anything. Through hardship and happiness― through death and dreams― these imperfect men proved that they were perfect for one another.