A Male-Conscious Critique of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

Recent "social" and "cultural" approaches to military history raise relevant issues concerning masculinity and the grunt in the trenches. Answers can be gleaned from the war novel by raising a number of relevant questions. Masculinity as a perspective is significant because war has been virtually monopolized by males at all levels from the battlefield to headquarters. As I will show in this essay, militarism on a national level and bravery on the battlefield are analogous to masculinity (Ashworth, 1980, pp. 204-205); conversely, with certain qualifications, national weakness or individual cowardice is paramount to a lack of masculinity. Consequently, the logical conclusion of militarism and its byproduct of conflict can be interpreted as a "legitimatizing of war ... and the associations of masculinity and national strength" (Scott, 1986, p. 1073). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]