All Quiet on the Western FrontLiterary AnalysisThe US casualties in the conquest of "Iraqi Freedom" amount so far to around sixteen thousand military soldiers. During World War I, Germany suffered over seven million casualties. All Quiet on the Western Front is a historical novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. The novel focuses on a young German soldier and the difficulties he encounters during his life at the front. The novel displays a powerful image to all its readers and tends to have a lasting effect on the way they interpret war. All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that encourages nations to consider the horrific hostilities that war brings upon humans before entering into global conflicts. From his graphic images and his detailed description of the relationships between characters, Remarque depicts the brutality of war at the front. Remarque uses a variety of techniques to show the gruesome effects that war has not only on soldiers but on the nation as a whole. One technique used by Remarque is imagination. An example showing the images shown by Remarque is found in chapter six when Paul Baumer talks about what the French do to German prisoners carrying bayonets that get a saw on their blunt edges: "Some of our men were found with noses cut and their eyes protruded with the bayonets of their own saws. Their mouths and noses were filled with sawdust so that they suffocated" (Remarque 103). Remarque shows how horribly the opposing sides treated each other's prisoners. The details used make you think about how serious the war must be and how the perception of war changes. Another example that Remarque uses to show the brutality of war is through the imagery of sound. In the fourth chapter Paul talks about the paranoia everyone feels when they hear the loud death cries of wounded horses at the front: "We can bear almost anything. But now the sweat is pouring down on us. We must get up and run no matter where, but where we cannot hear them these cries" (Remarque 63-64). Soldiers at war can bear to hear the bombs and bullets exploding endlessly at the front in a small, narrow trench, but they cannot bear the cries of the horses and become paranoid..