As the plot moves inexorably toward a conclusion, Remarque, becoming more philosophical and less objective, omits details of Paul’s gas injury, two-week leave, return to the front, and fatal wound. Even the setting of the garden in which he convalesces is ambiguous. By this point, details have receded in importance. For Paul and the other veterans, bestiality and carnage have usurped three years of their lives, leaving empty, aimless men to be the future generation of Germans. A compelling cry of abandonment, Paul’s final words, “I am so alone,” summarize the treachery of war, an insidious malaise that obliterates all ties with life, leaving an empty, dehumanized husk, which bears no will to live. The final bitter irony is the quiet and stillness on the day of Paul’s death: “. . . the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.”
