The painting has been interpreted as a critique the war's brutality and the neglect of veterans in German society, while alluding to the artist's disapproval of the Weimar Republic's societal and political decay.

Dix incorporated collage in the Match Seller, a technique popularized by Dada artists, to diverge from traditional art forms.

[1] According to art historian and curator Sabine Rewald, what set Dix apart from other painters associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit movement was his "fascination with the 'ugly'".

[4] Moreover, the composition has also been interpreted as the artist's political critique of the Weimar Republic, including the demoralization of its post-war society and the economic inequality that would contribute to the subsequent rise of the National Socialist government.

[4] Dix's depiction of the veteran as a "dehumanized outcast" has been compared to The Beggars, a 1568 painting completed by the Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder.