Character Analysis: All Quiet On The Western Front

Paul feels as though his family has lied to him because they said he would be a hero and it would be so great because he would be protecting his nation but then he goes and has to see people being blown to pieces.“…at that time even one’s parents were ready with the word ‘coward’; no one had the vaguest idea what we were in for. The wisest were just poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy” (11). Their families do not understand what his going on there. But then, Paul gets out there and there are men losing legs and arms.

In All Quiet on the Western Front Paul witness all the horrors of war. He sees death crawling towards the wounded soldiers in the wood, hospital, and on the front. When a soldier was wounded it killed them, they lost a limb or they got sent back to the front. Another awful part of war is soldiers would get shot and stranded out in the woods. They would yell for help, but were never found. Mental wounds were another injury of war. Paul would see people go insane on the front and some soldiers got shellshock. The worst part of the war for Paul was watching all of his comrades die, and his connection with the ones he loved at home fade away. The horrors of war is clearly represented in both Battle Scars and All Quiet on the Western Front with physical wounds, mental wounds, and loss of loved ones.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel written by Erich Maria Remarque that takes place in World War I. This novel is about an eighteen-year-old German boy that enlists with his classmates to the war. All of the boys that enlisted are very excited but they have no idea what war is really like. Throughout the years of fighting, Paul realizes that war is his life. He never really had a life after school so once the war is over he will have nothing to go back to. Paul thinks that war is horrible but that is all he has. During this novel, Paul experiences lots of brutal deaths. He watches his friends die and he can't do anything about it. He also sees young men risking their lives for their country. In this essay, I will go over the brutality of war using similes and personification quotes from All Quiet on the Western Front.

Many movies like the 300 depict war as awesome and glorious that even though it ends in tragedy it still is more glorious than it actually is. Now take a book like All Quiet on the Western Front end in tragedy like the 300, but the difference is through the entire book never once does the author make war sound outstanding and awesome. “All that meets me, all that floods over me are but feelings- greed of life, love of home, yearning for the blood, intoxication of deliverance. But no aims.” (Paul 294) He continues on to say that no one will understand what they went through and no one will understand their pain. He continues saying that no one will understand what they saw and that feeling of having no home and not being able to feel welcome in your own house. This quote shows that a soldier never is okay after a war because of how traumatic their experience is.

A recurring aspect throughout chapters one through five is the idea of soldiers having animal instincts during the war. These animal instincts are subconscious and are often a reaction to the violent ambiance of the war itself. The duty of the men is comparable to the duty of animals, the squad has to kill its enemies, in the same way that animals kill each other in order to survive. Animals will often attack and kill their predators in order to protect themselves and their offspring. Paul describes this characteristic, “By the animal instinct that is awakened in us, we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it

The Great War, also known as World War I, is a defining moment in Europe’s history. Its aftermath consists of the demolition of Germany’s economy, the rise of Adolf Hitler, and the loss of an entire generation of young men who were sent into combat. All Quiet on the Western Front chronicles the experiences of Paul Baumer, a 19-year old student who volunteers for the military during World War I along with his classmates Muller and Kropp. They are compelled to enlist by Kantorek, their fiercely patriotic but misguided schoolmaster. Paul’s life in the military is told in short entries that reveal the reality of war: horrifying battles, violence, alienation, emotional indifference. His accounts of war are personal and emotional, and the bleak tone

Along with personal feelings, the same goes for everyone Paul witnessing his best friend’s death have impacted their group so that they cannot feel or care for each other. After a battle that left many injured. While Paul rests he thinks of how everyone is left on their own, claiming, "We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our hunted glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill" (Remarque, 116). During another day in the trenches Paul sees many bodies everywhere, soldiers being killed in front of him. Losing everyone that was close to him has caused him to lose himself mentally making him unstable. He carries the pressure of telling the families which furthermore carriers his depression. He carries a comrade’s boots as they are passed down from soldiers after each owner dies, Paul carries these boots to represent unimportance of human life. In addition to young soldiers have to follow and look up to older generation and higher rank officers which lead to betrayal. Propaganda played a huge role in World War 1 giving everyone biased opinions and bad judgements of others. These opinions gave Paul a false perspective of older generations.

Through out this book the author shows that war is not about heroism and fighting nobly for your country, war is a terrible thing. Paul and his friends are on the frontline in the shelters for days and the pressure gets to the men as Paul says here. "The recruit who had the fit earlier is raving again and two more have joined in. One breaks away and runs for it." This shows that the frontline, added by lack of food, has driven the young recruits mad and so much so that one recruit runs away out into the battle field with inevitable consequence of death. Paul describes the front line in many ways to show the reader and give the reader a good picture of what the frontline is like for a soldier, as Paul expresses here." The front is a cage and you have to wait nervously in it for whatever happens to you", and Paul also says. "I can be squashed flat in a bomb-proof dugout, and I can survive ten hours in the pen under heavy barrage without a scratch." This shows the reader that it is very unpredictable on the frontline and that a soldier owes his life only to lucky chances that they have not yet been killed.

From the beginning Paul has many doubts about his life after the war. Compared to the older men, he had no career or love to hopefully reunite with. As he imagines a life away from the violence, he realizes these boys entered the war before

While on leave, Paul also visits his father and some of his father's friends, but does not wish to speak to them about the war. The men are "curious [about the war] in a way that [Paul finds] stupid and distressing." They try to imagine what war is like but they have never experienced it for themselves, so they cannot see the reality of it. When Paul tries to state his opinion, the men argue that "[he] sees only [his] general sector so [he is] not able to judge." These men believe they know more about the war and this makes Paul feel lost. He realizes that "they are different men here, men [he] can not understand..." and Paul wants to be back with those he can relate to, his fellow soldiers. Paul wishes he had never gone on leave because out there "[he] was a soldier, but [at home] he is nothing but an agony to himself." When Paul returns to the battlefield, he is excited to be with his comrades. When he sees his company, "[Paul] jumps up, pushes in amongst them, [his] eyes searching," until he finds his friends. It is then

World War I affected the soldiers mostly negatively mentally and physically because no war before it was as horrifying as the Great War. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, tells the tales of a group of German teenagers that were convinced to enlist to fight in World War I. Paul Baumer is the protagonist and the narrator in the novel who changes from an innocent young man to a hardened soldier along with his friends. The author uses the characters Paul, Himmelstoss and Kat to reveal the negative and positive consequences of war and to exemplify that war brings out the worst in people, war brings people closer together, and that war is dehumanizing.

“He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front” (Remarque 296). Paul Baumer, the narrator of All Quiet on the Western Front, enlisted into the German army at a young age of nineteen with a group of friends from school. Kantorek, Paul’s teacher, “gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went, under his shepherding, to the District Commandant and volunteered” (Remarque 11). After Paul and his friends underwent the ten weeks of horrific training, under the control of brutal Corporal Himmelstoss, they found out that everything Kantorek had told them about the war being illustrious was inaccurate. Paul and his fellow combatants experienced the war to be an alienating event that led the young men to feel alone because of the relationships between the young men at the front, the problems Paul faced when returning home, and the prewar and wartime civilian society.

For Paul and his comrades, who had sacrificed so much to participate in the war, the unfair leadership created tension between the ranks. For example, when Paul was on leave and strolled the streets of his hometown, a nearby Major became furious at Paul because he had missed the opportunity to salute. This man, with the considerable power to overthrow Paul’s leave, orders Paul, “Twenty paces backward, double march!” Paul complied, but was infuriated and contemplated the validity and relevance of these men. This, “ruins everything” (163), for Paul, as he abandoned wearing his uniform to avoid another confrontation. It was shown that the most controlling officers were so often those without combat experience on the front. In fact, Himmelstoss, a Corporal that trained Paul and his company, showed fear toward the battle when he was called to participate. In Chapter Six, he was found, “pretending to be wounded.” The thought of him progressing made his, “lips quiver, his moustache twitch” (131-32). Pretending to represent their country, these men showed no respect for the soldiers, resented them, and expressed the deepest inhumane actions in the name of

In the words of Otto Von Bismarck, “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” Many of the preceding war novels to All Quiet on the Western Front, misrepresented or overlooked the anguish of war, in favor of more resplendent ideals such as glory, honor, or nationalism. The predominant issue of All Quiet on the Western Front is the terrible atrocities of war. The reality that is portrayed in the novel is that there was no glory or honor in this war, only a fierce barbarity that actually transformed the nature of human existence into irreparable, endless affliction, destroying the soldiers long before their deaths.

Being in a war zone for years on end can have a huge toll on people and their sanity. For Paul and his comrades in the trenches facing life or death every day, their situation for many men would lead to further problems such as shell shock(PTSD). Paul points this out and explains what had got him through this within the novel, "Had we gone into the trenches without this period of training most of us would certainly have gone mad. Only thus were we prepared for what awaited us. We did not break down, but adapted ourselves; our twenty years, which made many another thing so grievous, helped us in this. But by far the most important result was that it awakened in us a strong, practical sense of esprit de corps, which in the field developed into the finest thing that arose out of the war—comradeship."(26-27) Here