All Quiet demonstrates a controlled use of symbols, which guide the reader's thinking toward significant themes of loss and longing.
Most prominent are the soft airman's boots, which pass from man to man after each wearer succumbs to a violent death. Worn by Kemmerich before his injury, they were undoubtedly stripped from a downed British airman before changing hands, which they do twice more as successive owners die. In all, four men possess the boots; none survives the war. In graphic scenes, Russian prisoners exchange their boots for crusts of bread; dismembered bodies lose not only boots, but the feet and legs they cover. Others, like Albert, have their limbs surgically removed, then fitted with artificial limbs, which mock the propriety of a whole body, undefiled by war.
A second symbol, butterflies, derives in part from Remarque's childhood hobby of collecting insects and mounting them in a case. For Paul, the butterflies, mocked by the ominous observation balloons that hover overhead, exemplify the innocence and joy of nature. Even when the graceful creatures alight on a skull, their presence reminds the men and the reader that the land on which battles are fought still contains a semblance of natural order. A second purpose of butterflies is a tangible representation of fragility and vulnerability. Like the frail-winged insect, Paul's life, and the lives of countless other young men, hovers on earth for a short while and ends all too soon.
