All Quiet

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” Remarque begins his introduction to All Quiet on the Western front with the idea that although the soldiers of a war may survive, they are eternally scarred for life. This idea is also represented in the poem “Heroes” by Louis Simpson. Both works deal with the topic of war, yet each writer addresses the issues of war in unique ways. Each author questions war and the negative effects of war on the society, and concludes that war’s devastation doesn’t merely affect soldiers and survivors in a physical aspect, but on an emotional and psychological level as well, which crushes their spirits and their souls.

Both in Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western front and in Simpson’s poem “Heroes” use the metaphor of sleep and death. In All Quiet on the Western front this idea is shown on page 273 when the main character says, “Here, on the borders of death, life follows an amazingly simple course, it is limited to what is most necessary, all else lies buried in gloomy sleep.” Sleep is related to death; a person in battle can only have what is absolutely necessary to stay alive, otherwise they will die. Remarque symbolizes life as “gloomy sleep” relating sleep and being awake in a metaphorical way to life and death. In addition, Simpson’s poem “Heroes” symbolizes death and sleep when the narrator says, “The heroes were packaged and sent home in parts. To pluck at a poppy and sew on a petal.” What Simpson means by using the metaphor of the heroes being packaged is that the soldiers were sent home in either body bags or in pieces because their bodies were severed in battle. Thus, that line represents death in war. What Simpson means by the metaphor of plucking at a poppy is symbolic in the sense that poppies are an opiate, which makes people go to sleep. Simpson was trying to establish the thought that the men of war were choosing their own death by entering the war, which he symbolizes as a man plucking at poppies. He represents the entering of the war with the plucking of the poppies, and sleep with death. Thus, Simpson relates sleep to death specifically in the sense that death is represented by an undisturbed sleep.

In addition, in All Quiet on the Western front and in “Heroes” the theme of mental deterioration over time in war is apparent. In All Quiet on the Western front Paul says, “Our thoughts are clay, they are molded with the changes of the days;-when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead. Fields of craters within and without.” The minds of the soldiers are so deteriorated and tainted by war that any time