In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, the characters sacrificed their youth in the war and their innocence was lost. Paul Bäumer, the narrator, was forced to discover a harsh reality. Paul’s high school teacher, Kantorek, pressured Paul and his classmates to enlist in the army. Paul was optimistic and naïve. At first, he was convinced that it would be an honor to die for his country. He enlisted, unknowingly signing up for a terrible suffering. His patriotism vanished and his personality battled with the truth of war. This led him to feel great sorrow. Paul and his classmates later realized that there is another aspect in the world and things around them are not as simple and innocent. The battle influenced their minds and attitude throughout the novel. Paul and his group of friends changed their thoughts and outlooks on life by witnessing the horrors of war when they became soldiers. The many deaths became part of their lives, which they were forced to deal with. The innocence that they once knew slowly altered.…
“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” ~~epigraph…
The protagonist of the All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer, says, "I believe we are lost" (Remarque 123). The soldiers themselves recognize that they are part of a lost generation. They are, "forlorn like children, and experienced like old men" (123). Lost Generation is revealed in All Quiet on the Western Front through the young soldiers loss of innocence, loss of life, and loss of home. The First World War has no positive effect on the lives of the young soldiers.…
“All Quiet in the Western Front” is a social commentary on how soldiers are effected emotionally and socially throughout the war and are conflicted on how to readjust to their lives after the Great War. Soldiers are conflicted by their character and do not know whether to pick back life up as a youth or as adults who have endured hard circumstances. The book does not focus on battles and it does not focus on a specific time frame, it rather evaluates what goes through the minds of a soldier. These men are literally being bombarded in the war front by explosives and in the home front by misinformed public who want to know the extremity of the war. Bystanders set High expectations for soldiers to be tough and to know how to behave in order to survive, yet those who did not participate in the Great War could only speculate what was going on in the soldier’s minds. The Great War damaged these soldiers physically and mentally, however certain elements gave the survivors the ability to pull through the war. The youth shifted its mentality and lost its innocence in the Great War. Therefore, Remarque did not focus his book on the combat that took place during the Great War, rather he presents social issues, which does not belittle his experience rather it presents a different view of the…
Paul Baumer is one of the many young men who share this fate. Throughout the novel, he expresses his disillusionment with the ordinary life on numerous occasions: he does not feel home at the house of his family, his civilian clothes “feel[s] awkward”, and, overall, he thinks that people who have not been through war cannot understand him (Remarque 164). He is longing for home and his ordinary life; however “a sense of strangeness will not leave [him], [he] cannot feel at home among these things”, he thinks that there is “a veil, between” him, his sister, and his mother. The reason for that is not that they stopped loving each other after he went to the war; the reason is that despite the fact that they love him and sympathize with him, they cannot understand the reality of the war (Remarque 160). Other people want to hear about his and German army exploits and treat him as props who is at war to bring glory to the nation. They speak convincing words about glory, fame, and progress, and youth like Paul believes them, at first; however, after they see their friends dying and other terrors that war brings it all loses its meaning. Paul admits that sometimes he is jealous of people who just live their civilian lives; however, on…
In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, a profoundly horrific image of war is formed in the eyes of the reader. In the past, War stories leaned toward themes of glory, adventure, and honor. In presenting his realistic version of a soldier 's experience, Remarque strips away the glory of war and reveals the physical and mental hardships of war. Throughout his book, a plethora of themes are emphasized and brought to light. Among those themes are deception, camaraderie, and propaganda, but the prevailing theme seems to be maintaining one 's humanity. The theme of humanity is readily prevalent throughout the novel, and can be tied in with the loss of innocence, fear, and ultimately the emergence of courage. During All Quiet on the Western Front, the main character Paul who is only nineteen, is faced with the atrocities of war which take a toll on his humanity.…
War is good and bad, beneficial and pointless, but above all other things, immensely inhumane. Man created war, and with our controversial human nature egged it on. “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque is a war novel that shows the war experience and how war changes people. During the time spent at the front and at rest the soldier is turned from human to inhumane. They are taken away from the normal human emotion and placed into a state of being more animalistic and superhuman.…
“The young veterans, he felt, did not receive the respect they were entitled to after what they had been through. He became a teacher, but as early as December 1920 quit in disgust-no one understood the young veterans, he complained.” (Taylor 4). Remarque’s expression of his feelings of young veterans who are not understood is a recurring topic in “All Quiet on the Western Front”. He explains through Paul Baumer that war destroys innocence, and no one gives appreciation to the veterans who had to make that sacrifice. “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…
“If you think of humanity as one large body, then war is like suicide, or at best, self mutilation”( Jerome Crabb). Paul Bäumer, the protagonist of All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque fulfills his understanding of Jerome Crabb’s quote after experiencing everything war has to offer. In the novel, Paul truly experiences what being in war can physically and mentally do to not only a man, but their families as well. It is apparent that Erich Maria Remarque had Paul Bäumer face various horrifying situations while at the front to make a powerful statement against war and everything associated with it. Throughout the book, Remarque uses implicit statements to help prove his argument in a myriad of ways. The statements Remarque includes in the novel cohere with one another to show that war dehumanizes the soldiers who choose to enlist into it. Through the implicit language and arguments used, the dehumanization effect war brought upon the soldiers is illustrated as an unbreakable force that takes no pity on the soldiers at the front. It greatly affects the soldiers physically, mentally, and even psychologically. Erich Maria Remarque shows that war has a dehumanizing effect on the men even to the point of being compared to savages by using point of view, literary devices and imagery.…
As the war changes so does the young and innocent mind of Paul Baumer. This is shown not only in his thoughts, but in the actions that he takes throughout the novel itself. Specifically, Paul’s mind changes because of his views on the war, how he witnessed the death of his classmates, and the battles that are fought change his personal view of life, and what it means to him as well as the war in itself.…
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque paints a clear and gruesome picture of the horrors and atrocities of war and the effects on those who fight the war. He tells the story of Paul Baumer and his comrades who, after being persuaded by their teacher Kantorek, patriotically enlist in the German army. The glory of being a soldier quickly fades and the true horror of war is soon realized. As the war continues, Baumer begins to forget his identity outside of the war; the war has both destroyed him and defined him. A theme strewn throughout the novel is that that Baumer and his comrades were fighting a fight in which they did not believe. This paper will attempt to portray the relevance of the events and themes in All Quiet on the Western Front with the just war theory, the current situation in Iraq, and the Israeli-Arab conflicts.…
Throughout the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the author Erich Maria Remarque, explores the effects of war through both literary and structural techniques. Remarque himself being involved in the war, writes from the perspective of young German soldiers who were on duty during the World War One campaign. Using various literary techniques, Remarque is able to convey the effects of war through the destruction of natural imagery, the displacement experienced by the soldiers as well as the loss of identity which eventually affects the soldiers the soldiers.…
"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another (263)." Powerful changes result from horrifying experiences. Paul Baumer, the protagonists of Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front utters these words signifying the loss of his humanity and the reduction to a numbed creature, devoid of emotion. Paul's character originates in the novel as a young adult, out for an adventure, and eager to serve his country. He never realizes the terrible pressures that war imposes on soldiers, and at the conclusion of the book the empty shell resembling Paul stands testament to this. Not only does Paul lose himself throughout the course of the war, but he loses each of his 20 classmates who volunteered with him, further emphasizing the terrible consequences of warfare. The heavy psychological demands of life in the trenches and the harsh reality of war strip Paul of his humanity and leave him with a body devoid of all sentiment and feeling.…
Baumer receives seventeen days of leave, but will then be reported to a training base to return to the front in six weeks. While on leave we receive a better understanding of how war has changed our brave soldier and how he will never be the same. “I imagined leave would be different from this… at the time i still knew nothing about the war”(Remarque 75). As our narrator sees people in his hometown he now realizes he isn't the person he was before war “I have been crushed without knowing it… I find i do not belong here anymore”. He cannot shake the feeling of “strangeness” as he no longer feels at home in a place that used to think of as his safe place . His mother starts to asks if it was “very bad out there” yet Paul lies to her (Remarque…
4. SUBJECT: This book is written by a German veteran of World War I, who describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the frontlines.…