I talked out there in theshell-hole"(Remarque, All Quiet IX. 199). Why does Baumer do it? Why does he employ the same types of vacuous wordsand sentiments that his elders and teachers had used and for which he has no respect? "It was onlybecause Ihad to lie [One assumes that this double meaning is apparent only in English.] there with him so long ...After all,war is war" (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 200).Ultimately, that is all that Paul Baumer and the reader are left with: war is war. It cannot be defined;it cannot evenbe discussed with any accuracy. It has no sense and, in fact, is the embodiment of a lack of any kind ofmeaning.In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque shows the disorder created by the war. Thisdisorderaffects such elemental societal institutions as the family, the schools, and the church. Moreover, thewar is sochaotic that it infects the basic abilities, not the least of which is verbal, of humanity itself. Byshowing how theFirst World War deleteriously affects the syntax of language, Remarque is able to demonstrate how the warirreparably alters the order of the world itself....
