AQOTWF 2

Expectation in life is always set high above us, influencing the way we act and the way we can recover from it. In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque, chapter two depicts how people’s expectations in events in people’s lives can metaphorically suffocate their perspectives of what they hope to see. Remarque uses the theme of drowning and water to imitate the sense of confusing from what they expected. “My thoughts become confused… It is a thick gruel, it suffocates.” (29). Paul and his classmate begin the war expecting the fight to be easy, but in the end they only became boys again, unable to cope with death and fighting. They feel trapped in and breathless due to the war which sweeps they away like a powerful wave of water.