The Influence Of Paul In All Quiet On The Western Front

As Paul and his friends fight, they lose innocence with every battle and bullet. Prior to the war, they were students, learning about life, with strong ambitions and dreams, beginning to “love life and the world; [but they shot] it to pieces” (Remarque 87). They had expectations of becoming heroes due to the romanticism of war, but in reality they watched their friends fall one by one. They expected to return home as if nothing

All the soldiers have identifying features back at home. But when they fight, they are no longer the same teens as they are a home. The war takes their identity. They “march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers” and “reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animal”(56 Remarque). This metamorphosis into barbaric creatures, develops as a result of the toll that war has taken on these men. As they approach the front, they turn into animals with beastly instincts which they cling onto for survival(Wagener). They have no identity which causes them to feel confused at times. Paul claims, “We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost”(123 Remarque). With this paradox, Paul understands that his past no longer defines him. He only knows life as a soldier on the front. Paul know he can never return to a normal life as he says, “A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I cannot find my way back, I am shut out”(172 Remarque). When Paul goes home to see his parents, it feels like years have past. This distance that he feels, results from the war taking over life and identity. No longer a studious and creative child, Paul takes on his new role as a strong and experienced soldier, giving testimony to the horror that occurs from

In addition to army attire, All Quiet on the Western Front exploits an obvious divide in powers between Paul’s generation and the one before him. This divide causes unneeded tension amongst soldiers that reinforces the over theme that war has a horrific effect on those involved. For example, Remarque proposes, “Give ‘em all the same grub and all the same pay and the war would be over and done in a day” (32). This quote is said by Katczinsky, not only does it give insight to his unique personality and characterization but it also emphasizes that differences between the soldiers. Not only does the previous generation have higher wages and better nutrition, they also are on the sidelines of the war, watching on from a safe distance. This expert

Lying dead on the ground was one of Paul’s friends, within the first few blasts of the war beginning. Not only Paul’s friends died, but as soon as the first bullet was shot on the frontline, a soldier was already killed in a blink of an eye. The feeling of the first few deaths were already stronger than anything Kantorek had said. Unfortunately, the war was only beginning, and Paul would have to deal with many more sorrows in the years ahead.

The soldiers have grown accustomed to the horrors of war, but they have been forced to endure it for so long that by this point they are all close to breaking. They can no longer envision any life other than the endless repeated days of the war. Paul states that war is almost like a virus. For the longest time, Paul and his comrades have fought off the virus, but they are too weak, too tired, and too hopeless. With this growing fragileness of their brains, the virus is slowly infecting the soldiers. They start to think that their end is coming; and maybe it’s not a bad thing. Germany is losing the war, more people are dying every day, and the ones who are alive can’t take much more.

At the age of nineteen Paul and his friends were sent off to go fight in the war. Paul knew that fighting in a war will come with a lot of responsibilities and end with a lot of traumatic events that he might not be able to overcome alone once the war is over. We start off with Paul just coming back from a battle in which they had lost a lot of men, about 70 troops. This is a lesson that Paul has to get used to during his time in the war because not everyone will survive. Paul and his buddies then go visit a soldier that recently lost his leg in the battle that they just came back from. This was hard for everyone including Paul because this soldier, Kemmerich, ended up not making it. During Kemmerich’s last hours Paul was by his side, trying to help him think of his recovery instead of the pain that he was feeling at the moment. However, he was too far gone and did not make it through the pain. Paul then took Kemmerichs boots and gave it to a fellow soldier that needed them. This was just one of the many lesson that he experiences because he knows that not everyone will live and he will see a lot of deaths and most of them will be the deaths of his friends.

Realizing the true meaning of war Paul starts to go into depression, entering a state where is unable to feel or care for anyone. In addition of the impact of death, Paul is constantly questioning why they must fight and kill, showing care

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, made in 1929, is in the perspective of a German soldier named Paul. This novel is based on World War I and follows Paul and his unit throughout the war. In the novel it had four different types of themes like universal brotherhood, comradeship, horror of war, and questioning of authority. The central argument that Remarque is trying to come across is that fighting in wars was not good for anyone. After the end of World War I, everyone thought war was still a good idea, but little did they know that there were so many soldiers dying, it was not helping anyone, it was hurting them. Remarque made this novel to make a a point across to everyone that war was not a good idea, and he shows that

All quite by the western front is a novel which took place during World War I. This book explains and magnifies the horror or, dreadfulness of war. Throughout the book Enrich Remarque, through analyzing, explains and tries to get several points across. The book revolves around a young 19 year old boy named Paul Baumer, and his friends. They voluntarily joined to fight in the war, but by the end of the story, Paul realizes the gruesomeness of war.

Later in the chapter, Paul thinks he hears shells, but it is just a train going by. These encounters show that wherever Paul goes he cannot escape the war, and what it has done to him. Paul eventually accepts that his former self is gone and that his identity as a soldier is all that remains. In present day, this sentiment also exists and many former soldiers experience post-traumatic stress disorder, making it increasingly harder to return to their former lives as civilians. When historians examine the death toll of wars they do not add the death toll of the soldiers who died after the war due to war related physical or mental injuries, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The unfortunate revelation that war still lingers after it is over is one that has not fully penetrated the minds of today’s population, and because of this war will continue to affect everyday life, wreaking havoc on those

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 Quiet on the Western Front is an enthralling story about WWI, which, unlike other war stories at the time, vocalized the negative aspects of the war specifically the psychological effect. You can see throughout the book, the psychological horrors which Paul experiences. This psychological aspect of stories is generally not as conspicuous or as horrifying as shown in All Quiet on the Western Front. I have always been intrigued by the psychological affect that war has on you, and this book was able to provide an accurate representation of why war effects the solders in such a horrid way. The part that was most compelling was when Paul was stuck in the hole. He had a sudden revelation that the French soldier was a “person” too. He

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).

Throughout the film, the main character, Paul, discovers that war isn’t some playground where you can mess around. He finds out that the war wasn’t going to last a couple of months, and that Germany wasn’t overpowering them. The war had an enormous impact on Paul because he enlisted to serve his fatherland, Germany. He believed that it was his sworn duty to serve and defend the country from the French and its allies. However, later on in the film, a certain event is dragged on to emphasize the importance of what war really was. While avoiding enemy fire in a hole caused by an explosive, a French soldier jumps in to take cover. To that soldier’s surprise, Paul stabbed him in the abdominal area as soon as he touched the ground in order to save his own life. While bleeding out, Paul takes off the helmet of the enemy soldier in which he has just stabbed to realize that the man he stabbed was relatively close to his age. Seeing the desperate look on the man’s face, Paul begins to wonder if the war is really worth it. Instantly, Paul feels frustrated because this is the first time he saw the face of someone he killed. In order to make up for it, he pulls out a notebook from the man’s uniform and decides to write to the man’s wife. Moreover, Paul’s character seems to change throughout the film because the war changes him from a young school boy to a man who feels sorrow. His character also changed because at the end of the film, all he wants is for the war to finish. During the beginning of the film, Paul and his schoolmates talk about returning to their homes and being honored for their service to the fatherland. Unfortunately, war was nothing like they had anticipated and all his friends were killed during conflict. This scene further explains the brutality of how the war really was and its impact on the soldier’s serving it and their surroundings.

Firstly, during the wars, the citizens shown to be back home, out of the direct danger of the war zone, don’t give much care or regard about the men fighting there in the war, only to pride and patriotism. The views of a close male figure in Paul’s life, that of his father, seem to affect him quite heavily, as displayed in the following quote; ‘My father would have preferred me to wear my uniform, though, because he would like to take me to see his friends dressed like that.’ In this example, the reader can pick out that his father seems to care about nothing more than that his son is a soldier fighting in the war, about having bragging rights over that concept. The biggest male figure Paul had in his life, even if they were not close in the slightest anymore, now thought of him as something to show off, a trophy of sorts. This is likely not only to hurt Paul, but it affects his subconscious because he just ‘knows’ what his father is going to want from him for selfish reasons. This example helps the reader see through Paul’s father, that society wants these men as trophies, bragging rights,