Engraved somewhere deep in our emotions there’s a guard; a shield that prevents too much reality to be accepted. Going from school to warfare and being completely encircled in death changes not only a person’s perspective, but creates a dent beyond repair in sanity. With war being simply too much to handle, the soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, block out feelings by focusing on insignificant objects, which is displayed through the author’s symbolism.
Life for the soldiers is dangerous, dirty, and depressing; with little food and clothing, the soldiers’ day-to-day simple survival instincts take priority over any strong emotion. The soldiers decide that, "We have lost all sense of other considerations, because they are artificial. Only the facts are real and important to us. And good boots are hard to come by." In this way, the boots become one of the novel’s most important symbols of the cheapness of life. In the war, a soldier’s boots live longer than its owner, and each time the man wearing them dies, the question of who will inherit the boots overshadows the death. Dwelling on each friend’s death would lead to madness, so in order to cope, they simply neglect all feelings. The soldiers’ feelings become as dangerous an enemy as the opposing army.
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