Ptsd The Real Fight After A War Analysis

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

Paul's ability to recognize this most important truth of War is what kills him. He realizes what he has

The first reason why Paul feels cut-off by the world is simply because he is not in a normal community and is not able to spend time with his friends and family back home. If any two people spend significant time away from each other it is natural that they grow apart no matter how much they want to stay connected. In Paul’s case, he is not only growing apart from the people he left when he went to war, but he also left the community and the rest of the world. This is a necessary evil of going to war and Paul is well aware of it, “‘It will go pretty hard with us all. But nobody at home seems to worry much about it. Two years of shells and bombs--a man won't peel that off as easy as a sock.’ We agree that it's the same for everyone; not only for us here, but everywhere, for everyone who is of our age; to some more, and to others less. It is the

Paul has his first real encounter with death when his friend Kemmerich dies in the hospital. The realization that he and his friends can and will die makes the war suddenly real to Paul. He battles with internal opposing forces of hope and despair, as he grows from an ignorant child to an educated veteran. He begins to

Paul is forced to kill his enemy with his bare hands in a shell hole. Consequently, Paul then must stay in the same hole while the soldier is taking his last breath. I think this impacted him even more because now he had to put an actual face with the enemy. He realized that the soldier was of the same generation, and that they could have had a lot in common. Paul and his comrades had spent so much time in the past dehumanizing the enemy. Paul says to himself, “This is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing” (Remarque,221). Paul for the first time realizes just how human the enemy really is. Seeing and hearing him is more than Paul can take. In my opinion, this was the turning point and Paul would never be the same again. It wasn’t something that Paul had witnessed before. It’s easy to kill someone from afar. It doesn’t mess with your mind because there isn’t the physical connection. That’s why he feels he needs to help the soldier. In fact, he does as much as he can to help the dying soldier. First and foremost I think this helps clear his conscience. I thought it was interesting when he said, “In it is the book with his name. So long as I do not know his name perhaps I may still forget him, time will obliterate it, this picture” (Remarque,224). You can tell this event really messed with Paul’s mind. You sense this when Paul starts

In the beginning of this chapter Paul finds out that Kat, Müller, Tjaden, and Kropp are still alive. Everyone is getting ready for the emperor of Germany to see the whole army. So everyone is getting cleaned up and they received new clothes. However, it turns out that he is not as extraordinary as everyone made him out to be. Later in the chapter Paul volunteers to go into No Man’s Land to find information on the enemy and gets lost on his way back. Once the bombardment starts he is forced to jump in a shell hole and kill a man. The experience for Paul is terrible and guilty about it. During this time Paul is talking to the dead solider and reads the letter in his pocket. Which only creates more pain for Paul and guilt on his conscious. Once

While providing his service at the front, Paul slowly began to lose his old personality of gentleness and compassion towards others as he would fight and kill his enemies while sealing horrific and traumatizing images in his mind. As Paul is on the front during battle Paul begins to comprehend his loss of old self-desires and his

The physical threat of the war forced the characters to rely primarily on a primal animalistic instinct to survive. Early in the story Paul explained that the other soldiers’ lives were merely interrupted, they knew what was waiting for them. Furthermore, for the young soldiers, this war had turned them into wastelands, and nulled their ability to think beyond the war (20.) Once again, due to their lack of establishment, the soldiers felt adrift without any ability to control their direction. Also, after a difficult day of fighting, Paul was put on sentry duty. Looking out into the darkness, Paul recalled calm memories of peacetime, and, at the time, this seemed so foreign, for it was impossible to find peace and quiet on the Western Front. He eventually concluded that these scenes had lost their meaning-- he and his friends had become indifferent to suffering, for they saw it daily (123.) The constant barrage of horrific scenes coupled with emotional detachment had taken their toll on the protagonist. He felt as though the war was his life, he could exist during peacetime, but he would not actually live. Eventually, the protagonist volunteered to go on night patrol. He found himself hiding in a shell hole, avoiding the shelling. Suddenly, a soldier fell into the hole with Paul so Paul reacted and stabbed the man in the throat. While the man was gurgling on his own blood Paul desired to do anything to

All around Paul there are rumors of peace, but Paul cannot fathom his life after the war. To Paul, the war has consumed his humanity and has destroyed any possibility of returning to the civilian world. One month before the end of hostilities, Paul is afflicted by poisonous gas and succumbs to his wounds. Paul’s years of suffering could only have been eased through death, which he embraces with “an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.” The unemotional and impersonal nature of this concluding narration echoes the overall sense of emotional detachment in which these soldiers have

In chapter 7, Paul tells a reader something he has learned from being in the war. This piece of knowledge can not only be taken literally, but also mentally as well. The quote says that Paul “found out this much:-terror can be endured so long as a man simply ducks” which refers to the soldiers having to duck in order to avoid bombs and bullets; this could also be taken as soldiers need to avoid terror in their minds by avoiding thought of the terrible things they see, do and experience (Remarque 138). Paul also says “it kills if a man thinks about it” saying that if the soldiers take the time to think about avoiding dangers, they will be hit and inch ever closer to death. This not only refers physically though, if the man dwells on the things

Throughout his time in the war his mental state begins to decline, like many other soldiers during war; Paul goes from a kid untouched by war to hardened veteran. At the beginning of the book, Paul is living in camps for soldiers on the front line. It is said that Paul’s schoolmasters have filled his head with lies of the war, “We were still crammed full of vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also an ideal and almost romantic character. ”(Remarque 11), but he has not experienced the horror of the front lines yet. When Paul describes when he is in the camps that, “These are wonderfully care-free times”(9).

All of the horrible events he's witnessed and committed, and the immense pressure he faced from the constant chance of death required his brain. He had one thing on his mind: survival. Yet the sad truth of the matter was even if he did survive, he would have no life waiting for him following the war. He had no knowledge of how to live a life prior to the war, and he most certainly would not be able to obtain satisfaction after the war either. At best, Paul’s life past the war would have been riddled with thoughts of the war, along with post traumatic stress disorder haunting his every thought. And men will not understand us—for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten—and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;—the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin.”(Remarque 294) No one will understand the Paul’s journey, and struggles he faced while serving his country. Only those who served alongside him could relate, but they would be damaged as well. What truly pushes Paul over the edge is when he is forced to observe death face to face. He finds himself in a situation on the battlefield where he must take shelter in a hole. The hole, however, was inhabited by an enemy soldier, and Paul acts on instinct and stabs him, and is forced to watch him slowly die. This moment is crucial, as we witness Paul finally break, and lose the final bit of humanity left. "Comrade, I did not want to kill you…But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction…now, for the first time, I see you are a

Throughout his four tours in war, Chris was exposed to actual and threatened death. Which is one of the requirements to have PTSD. A lot of those situations where he experienced the actual or threatened death were people he cared about deeply, which definitely impacted him. Not only that, but he had killed dozens of people as well so he witnessed it all in person and had a direct experience. The four categories of symptoms for PTSD are intrusion, avoidance, negative cognitions/mood, and arousal/reactivity. He clearly displayed symptoms in each of these four categories especially when he would return home to his family.

Paul describes such ability, “By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. One cannot explain it” (56). This instinct that develops in soldiers over time keeps the soldiers alive. The cruelty of war transforms Paul and his comrades into something inhuman-like. As in nature, the army provides an environment in which revenge can be personally sought out. Paul and his comrades are capable of doing great damage to those who wrong them, such as the beating of their harsh superior, described by Paul as, “It was a wonderful picture: Himmelstoss on the ground; Haie bending over him with a fiendish grin and his mouth open with bloodlust . . . and towering over them like a woodcutter the indefatigable Tjaden” (49). Paul and his comrades beat their cruel superior as an act of revenge. The soldiers are described as almost animalistic, which is a characteristic uniquely brought on by the ruthless war. Attributes deemed improper for society originate from the war, changing the young men

While many countries and individuals initially believed that entering WWI would benefit their country, the soldiers soon faced the negative consequences of losing their former identity and innocence. This was a terrible consequence from the war because the soldiers became dehumanized from their former identity. What was once as fun of a thing as life becomes stupefied; and as a result, the soldiers lose their humanity. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque shows how soldiers fighting in WWI face losing their sense of humanity. This is evident in when Paul comes home during his leave and realizes that war has changed him for the worst. “Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless- I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless without end. I ought to have never come back” (Remarque 185). Not only has Paul lost his former sense of humanity, he feels at home being a soldier rather than being at home. Paul is uncomfortable being at home as he can no longer live a life without thinking about death and feels agony for himself due to dehumanization. This is