Emotional Trauma In All Quiet On The Western Front

Psychologically Paul is greatly affected by his experiences in the war and is unable to express his time there. He has escaped any major injury during the most violent parts of the war. However after all his companions are killed in duty, he is restless and loses the desire to live. Paul was set free from the emotional turmoil when he dies; the physical pain no longer affects him. Ironically, he dies on an all quiet western front after seeing the terror behind the country’s nationalism.

We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.

The war also changed Paul by hampering his ability to communicate with the people on the home front. Paul learns that it is hard to communicate with them when he visits his hometown. He realizes that people have no clue how bad war really is especially his own mother. "Suddenly my mother seizes hold of my hand and asks falteringly: Was it very bad out there, Paul?(143)" He did not know what to say so he lied to her and said that it was not so bad. Paul could not believe said that. Of course the war was bad, anything is bad when people are dying. He sees that the gap between him and society is getting bigger especially with his mother. Also Paul has no way to describe his experiences, he can not put them into words because the experiences were so horrible

In Three Day Road, Xavier voiced this by saying, “We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the other facing what we do to the enemy” (Boyden, p.301). This quote poetically summarizes the emotional pain that soldiers are subject to. Service members become desensitized to the brutality of war. So even after a soldier leaves a battle without physical injury, he cannot escape the guilt and remorse of the violence he has committed.. Depression and anxiety disorders can lead to changes in personality and can make it very difficult for someone to complete basic tasks and take care of themselves.

In the chapters focusing on the boys' experiences on the front line, it is obvious the soldiers would give anything just to end the war. “The days stand like angels in blue and gold, incomprehensible, above the ring of annihilation. Every man here knows that we are losing the war” (268) This quote shows how the German soldiers know that there is no hope in winning and cannot bare the violence and death coming from the useless fighting. The horror that these men have seen has put them in a position to never want to fight again or anymore for any reason whatsoever. The people on the frontline of war are the only ones who can understand their hatred for war and their preference of no fighting is worth the price of war. In chapter seven of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul is challenged by an old German man saying that Paul does not understand the war and why he is actually fighting. Ironically, Paul is the one who understands the war, and he is the only one who truly sees how all this fighting really isn't worth it. Lastly, not only does war result in unneeded death, but it also ends with ruining the lives of the soldiers who fight within it. After leaving the front line, Paul, along with many other soldiers goes home with a case of post traumatic stress disorder, which is evident when a car goes by and he becomes scared as it sounds like a shell. War not only kills but ruins an entire generation because of it’s long lasting effects on the people inside of it, making it even less worth the

Paul and his mother are inseparable knowing that they can only see eachother once in a while. Paul is internally affected because he feels guilty due to war, knowing that he was not there to take care of his mother when she needed assistance. At the end of Chapter 7, Paul receives a leave that is six weeks long and must return to the front when the six weeks are over. When he arrives at his hometown, he realizes that his mother is dying of cancer. He never expected his mother to be in these conditions so he says, “I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. I ought never to have come on leave” (Remarque 185). Not only does Paul feel guilty but he also has the feeling of regret. He feels guilty because he was not there to assist his mother when she needed attention.That is also why he calls himself an agony. The relationship between him and his his mother was lost. He also has the feeling of regret because he knows that he should not have enlisted in the army knowing that he has many other responsibilities outside the army such as his education, watching over his parents, and watching over his only sister. Now that there is nothing to do over his mother, he must spend a lot of time with her while he is on leave. When Paul says “I ought never to have come on leave”, he describes how

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.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel illustrating the struggles in World War 1. Paul, whom the novel is based upon, is forced to change his personality to avoid mental damage during war. Paul and his group of friends are altered not only physically, but also mentally. Experiences during war causes them to cast their emotions away to avoid getting hurt emotionally. Paul and his comrades are being shaped by the experiences during war and are beginning to accept that life is fragile. As war drags on, death becomes common enough to become a casual thing for Paul. When Paul goes back to talk to Kemmerich’s mother, he is shock how much pain she is in, “. . . she strikes me as rather stupid all the same. . .Kemmerich

Written by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front is the tale of a young man by the name of Paul. Paul who is nineteen years old gathers several of his friends from school and together they voluntarily join the army fighting for the Axis alliance. Before they are sent off into actual battle, they are faced with the brutal training camp. Along with this they face the cruelty of the life of a soldier. This made them question the reason for which a soldier fights. They are told that they fight because they must be nationalists and must therefore be patriotic. But they began to understand that these are just clichés and are used to brainwash soldiers. Soon after they graduate they are sent into the fray of war. The premature idea of war being glorious and honourable is destroyed when they step into the gruesome actuality of war. They are forced to live in constant fear for their life. Kemmerich, a friend of Paul, gets injured and contracts gangrene. From this his leg is amputated to stop the infection from spreading. Sadly, the operation was done too late and Kemmerich is declared to be slowly dying. Paul and his friend visit Kemmerich is slowly dying, and Müller, another former classmate, overlooks Kemmerich’s horrible state and says that he wants Kemmerich’s boots for himself. Accustomed to life at war, Paul doesn’t consider Müller insensitive. Paul understands that Muller knows Kemmerich will no longer use his boots

The French soldier dies an agonizingly painful and prolonged death; his gurgling and whimpering haunting Paul, but when the soldier finally dies, the resulting silence is even more haunting and debilitating. “Paul describes the trenches, the shelling, the screams of wounded horses and men, the poison gas attack, and the rain that drenches everything. [He] describes the tension and the horror of a major battle, with the confusion, the noise, and death turning the soldiers into numbed, unthinking machines.” (All). Paul recognizes how war forces people to think and act in ways that differ from their values and beliefs, as they are desperate to survive. Remarque uses imagery and sensory details to skillfully formulate a raw and grisly atmosphere that leaves no aspect hidden. Towards the end of the novel, many of Paul’s comrades have died, and he is the only person left in his class who is alive. He expresses the desolation and misery he feels, “I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear.” (Remarque 295). Paul has nothing left to lose at this point, so he faces his enemies free of fear and obligation to return back to his friends and his home. His sorrowful tone conveys his indifference towards death and his desire

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.

In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, a group of boys are pressured into joining the army during World War I. Each of the boys come from different places but while fighting in the war, they learn to come together as one. The soldiers teach each other new strategies and learn to work together when facing challenges. One by one, the boys die in significant ways until no one is left. Kat gets injured in his leg but dies from a splinter in his head because Remarque wants to show that a father figure benefits the other soldiers and that in order to fight in a war, soldiers must prepare for the unexpected.

Using defense mechanisms to cope with the gratuitous struggle of war was definitely insufficient, especially when the bloodbath of the young soldiers’ loved ones overpowers a simple device like daydreaming. Sometimes, all they needed was a breath of fresh air and different scenery to ease into; “These are wonderfully care-free hours. Over us is the blue sky. On the horizon float the bright, yellow, sunlit observation-balloons, and the many little white clouds of the anti-aircraft shells… We hear the muffled rumble of the front only as very distant thunder; bumblebees droning by quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer.”; (Remarque 9). Generally, the creative imagery and the depictions of nature were spread largely throughout the war novel, and specifically from this moment in time, it was clearly illustrated. Paul and his fellow comrades found themselves in a seemingly protected paradise and were able to ease in with the tranquility of the “wonderfully care-free hours.” They were detached from both the physically inhumane and mentally deteriorating workings of war. After all the bloodshed and brutality, there was no doubt in mind that the soldiers would not presentably steal the opportunity in being able to be surrounded once again with such thriving life.

While the disconnection allows the soldier to adapt to the brutal war environment, it inhibits them from re-entering society. When he takes his leave, he is unable to feel comfortable at home. Even if Paul had survived the war physically, he most likely would not have integrated back into society suitably. The emotional disconnection inhibits soldiers from mourning their fallen friends and comrades. However, Paul was somewhat less than able to completely detach himself from his feelings, and there are several moments in the when he feels himself pulled down by emotion. These rush of feelings indicate the magnitude to which war has automated Paul to cut himself off from feeling, as when he says, with unbridled understatement, “Parting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army (p. 269) .”