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same theme as Siegfried Sassoon's poem, " How to Die." Putting these two works
together makes up into one general theme on how soldiers die, whether they die with
peace or disturbance addressing World War I.
Many soldiers die unexpectedly, therefore, they all die differently. Some soldiers
die through bombings, poison gases, machine guns, and starvation. Most soldiers die with
misery and suffering, but one soldier dies peacefully. " He fell in October 1918, on a day
that was so quiet and still on the whole front." Paul Baumer, the narrator of the novel,
dies without disturbing emotions. He was calm and quiet, which is similar to one of the
poem's stanza. "The dying soldier shifts his head/ To watch the glory that returns" (3-4).
The soldier here is dying and he is glad that his time had come. The soldier's death
resembles Paul's death, therefore, both the novel and the poem signify the same
theme on "how to die." Paul's "face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the
end had come."
Death is also shown in different ways in both the novel and the poem. Some of
Paul's comrades die with agony, and the poem itself shows sufferings from a soldier. "He
lifts his fingers towards the skies/ Where holy brightness breaks in flame" (5-6). At first,
the soldier thinks of peace as he dies, but the mood changes when the brightness is taken
over by flame. Flame symbolizes evil and in this case, agony for the soldier. In the novel,
Kemmerich dies with difficulty. Some parts of him want to die and some parts do not, but
basically he wants to finish up his life so that the suffering would end. But every soldier
has to wait for their right time, and that is the hard part. More or less, they have to face
the sufferings and witness their own death.
Siegfried Sassoon's poem, "How to Die", has a theme that is displayed as a theme
in Erich Maria Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. Both works' themes
blend into one general theme. In other words, what their death is like.