E.M.Remarque "Läänerindel Muutuseta"
Remarque's bitter critique of the ideals of patriotism and nationalism that drove nations into
the catastrophe of World War I. Kantorek, the teacher who filled his students' heads with
passionate rhetoric about duty and glory, serves as a punching bag as Remarque argues
against those ideals. Though a modern context is essential to the indictment of Kantorek's
patriotism and nationalism, Kantorek's physical description groups him with premodern evil
characters. The fierce and pompous Kantorek is a small man described as "energetic and
uncompromising," characteristics that recall the worried Caesar's remarks about Cassius in
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. / He thinks too much.
Such men are dangerous" (I.ii.195196). Napoleon also springs to mind as a historical model
for Kantorek.
The inclusion of a seemingly anachronistic literary type--the scheming or dangerous
annaabi.ee 
