Paul´s Death in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The men and women who served in the First World War endured some of the most brutal forms of warfare ever known. Millions were sent to fight away from home for months, even years at a time, and underwent a series of terrible physical and emotional experiences. The new technologies available to First World War armies combined with the huge number of men mobilized made the battlefields of 1914-18 horrific, deadly and terrifying places.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a story about the horrors of World War I from the perspective of a German soldier named Paul. Throughout Paul’s service he sees and does horrible things, becoming disillusioned with the ideals of the German high command and of world leaders in general. This book makes it clear not only that the generation of boys and men that were sent out to fight feel betrayed by the previous generation and by their government, but also that there was a huge gap between the soldiers and everyone else around them.

The images that linger in my mind from the novel All Quiet on the Western Front is how Paul and his classmates, one by one, battle with death and lose. As the story progresses, Paul constantly watches his classmates and friends die one after another until he is the last man standing. Though the war itself is traumatizing I find it more devastating to watch people you love parish before your eyes. Kemmrich’s death was upsetting because Paul had to watch his friend slowly and painfully die on the hospital bed while the doctors overlooked his condition. Kemmrich’s death was also upsetting because his friends only seemed to care about who would receive his lavish boots. Another ominous death was the death of Kat, Paul’s best friend. Kat and Paul

Paul explains his view of the constant attacks in the war and the overall negative atmosphere of the war. He feels as if the atmosphere itself “clogs the lungs,” and “suffocates” (Remarque 29) because of the loss that Paul has endured. Paul feels that the constant warfare and atmosphere surrounding him is slowly killing him. He is used to the constant loss and death around him so much so he does not know what living a normal life is anymore either. When Paul returns home he does not feel like he can live a normal life anymore.

In All Quiet on the Western Front author and World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque tells the story of a young soldier named Paul Bäumer who enlists in the German army with a group of his classmates. In the novel the reader comes discover the many horrors that Paul has to endure during his service before his untimely death in October 1918, only weeks before the war ended. The events that happen in the novel to Paul and his friends in his company during the war are very similar, if not identical, to what the German soldiers had to endure while World War I raged on in the real world. The way that the novel portrays the soldiers’ rations and reliance on food, their life on the front and in camp, how the young soldiers’ lives were destroyed before they even began, how the older generations pushed the younger ones to enlist, the death of soldiers in battle, and the refusal to surrender matches almost perfectly to how things were during World War I, particularly for the German soldiers.

World War I, or “The Great War”, began in 1914 and ended in 1918. The devastation witnessed in those four years alone, caused nearly 9 million people to die and millions more crippled, grief stricken, maimed, or psychologically scarred. Considered by some to be the first man-made catastrophe of the twentieth century, many scholars still debate over the main underlying causes of World War I. Many things contributed to the war, changing the lives of many people, many of them still evident today. Beginning only as a European conflict, gradually it developed into a world war.

World War I was one of the deadliest wars in human history, taking the lives of millions and changing the lives of countless more. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, 19- year-old German soldier Paul Bäumer strives to survive in the Western Front of World War I. Throughout the novel, the war forces Paul to change his character into a hopeless soldier that relies on instinct to only survive in battle. Once an ambitious and compassionate young man, the horrors, and anxieties of war induces Paul to detach his inner personality from reality forces him to focus on war. As a result, Paul struggled to understand himself and could not conceive a future without war, transforming his existence into an endless suffering, destroying Paul long before the war kills him.

War is always the worst tragedy of mankind in the world. We, as human beings, were experienced two most dolorous wars that were ever happened in our history: World War I and World War II. A young generation actually does not know how much hardship the predecessors, who joined and passed through the wars, undergo. We were taught about just how many people died in the wars, how much damage two participations in the wars suffered or just the general information about the wars. We absolutely do not know about the details, and that’s why we also do not know what the grief-stricken feeling of people joining in the wars really is. But we can somewhat understand that feeling through war novels, which describe the truthfulness of the soldiers’ lives, thoughts, feelings and experiences. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, which takes World War I as background, is the great war novel which talks about the German soldiers ' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the hopeless of these soldiers about the “future” – the time the war would have ended.

These horrors made the men unable to return to their normal selves after experiencing the war

In the last chapter Paul has had many terrible and horrific wartime experience and he is the last living recruit from his original group. During this time the German people are getting anxious about the ending the war. While out on the field Paul inhales poisonous gas and is given 14 days to go home. However, Paul has a weird feeling about returning home because, he has no future goals for his life. The only thing Paul can think about is the empty shell of people the war has produced. Later in this chapter Paul finally dies on a quiet day. Leaving the last words on the war “All Quiet on the Western Front”. Leaving Paul glad that the thing that destroyed him most ended. The thing that ripped something pure out of him and replaced it with emptiness.

Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front brings the reader directly into the harrowing battlefields of World War I, where the young German soldier Paul witnesses frequent bloodshed and attempts to keep himself alive. The author, a veteran himself, chooses to leave a political overview of the war from his book in order to truly reveal the anguish of those serving at the front. He criticizes the brainwashing of young men into joining the army, using the narrator’s story to convey the ways in which the conflict desensitizes soldiers to killing. Paul realizes how the war has affected him when he stabs a French soldier and must remain hidden in a shell-hole with him. As he witnesses the man’s slow death, he finally understands that

The rise of World War I caused millions of casualties and was yet another demonstration of how supposedly civilized nations could be led into a chaotic war of power over lands and people. Since the beginning of civilization, war has been the way of the world. However, with major advances in technology, this idea of war has since become mechanized and deadlier. There is no doubt that the powerful men who lead wars often don’t care to think of nitty gritty of war, to them, rather, it’s a matter of power and legacy. In Remarque’s novel, the particular story of Paul and his comrades is a perfect example of how a generation can be used and manipulated to drive the agenda of power- hungry men. Through Remarque’s own personal experience and unparalleled writing ability, this novel presents many first-hand experiences into the living conditions of soldiers and peoples.

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

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

Similar to the convergence of physical issues, the soldiers had a similar emotional trauma experienced. The mass death that was a consequence of the physical carnage of the war could easily lead to emotional distress due to the nature of death. Consider in All Quiet on the Western Front when the soldiers had to seek protection in a graveyard when “heavy fire” overtook them, what Paul thought about the event described the messed up mental side of the soldiers regarding death (Remarque 65). Primarily, when trying to escape the bombs and gas, and Paul had to hide in a coffin, he realized that the coffin “shall protect [Paul], thought death himself lies in it,” (Remarque 67). This whole statement can be analyzed as Paul coming to the understanding that the only way to