Furthermore, I believe that the author is trying to characterize his generation, the young men who fought the Great War and who were destroyed by it. The group of men which Paul Bäumer fights with reminds me of the camaraderie that lies within the Marine Corps ethos.…
The negative effects of World War 1 are endless. Despite some of the positive outcomes, the book focuses on the main points of how the soldiers felt emotionally, physically, and mentally. When reading the book, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, one can further understand the true sadness, physical pain, and mental exhaustion that the German soldiers actually went through. This changes our perspective about the war because we can oversee our American bias and understand the pain on both sides. When Paul says, “We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through,” it shows how although there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers fighting together, the pain and the suffering was…
War. Very few words invoke such strong and conflicting reactions. War demands honor and death. War offers hope and despair. War creates the ultimate challenge and the pinnacle of defeat. Throughout history, man struggles to understand war and its impact on the people engaged in its horrors. Paul Baumer, the protagonist in Erich Maria Remarque’s historical fiction novel All Quiet on the Western Front, enlists in the war with his comrades. Throughout the novel images reveal the ultimate emotional and physical destruction faced by Paul and his fellow soldiers, whom World War I corrupts. In his novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Enrich Maria Remarque employs imagery of animals, nature, and water to convey the theme of destructiveness of war.…
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.…
War has a tendency to bring out both the worst and best qualities of human beings. These conflicts and their resulting effects on people are often depicted in literature. One of the best examples of war literature is Erich Marie Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. All Quiet on the Western Front depicts the everyday struggles of German soldier Paul Baümer and his comrades. Throughout the war, the servicemen maintain a strong bond between with each other. However, this bond even extends to the enemy on occasion, showcasing the universality of humanity. Two key themes in All Quiet on the Western Front are comradeship and the universal nature of mankind, and Remarque often demonstrates this.…
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.…
In All Quiet on the Western Front by Enrique Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer as he fights through World War I and discovers the trials of being a soldier. As they survive through the war with each other, Paul and the other soldiers began to understand certain realities of life. Going into the battlefield teenagers, the soldiers come out as old men, burdened with their experiences. The war, meant to glorify Germany and turn its men into heroes, deadens and dehumanizes Paul and the other soldiers until they can’t recognize themselves.…
This story is about a nineteen year old soldier named Paul Baumer followed by his friends while at war and it shows how it effects each and every one of them physically and mentally.“We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.”(Remarque 13) World War I was a tragic war with more than 9 million soldiers dead, and roughly 21 million were injured in the end. Germany and France both sent millions of men between the ages 15-50 into the war. Throughout the book and the movie you can see and understand all of the tragic deaths that occurred on both sides of this war. Not only were there millions of deaths by the fighting but also many deaths by other things such as, soldier dying from lack of food, lack of reinforcements, rats running through the trenches, and lastly deadly gases in the air. Any soldier that actually did survive was considered “lucky” to Paul Baumer. “We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life.…
Another effect the war had on Paul’s generation was comradeship. The soldiers felt an incredible bond with each other because they have gone through the dangers and horrors of war together. To Paul, his comrades are “more to him than life” (Remarque 212). “They are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere…” (Remarque 212). Paul “belongs to them and they to him” (Remarque 212). Paul and his fellow comrades have an intense friendship that is strengthened by their relentless fears of terror and hardship.…
Amidst the chaos and terror of war, a soldier needs some sort of comfort to keep him going. Naturally, this comfort is provided by his comrades. When Paul has a panic attack taking cover in a shell-hole, he should be moving forward but he is too afraid. Then he hears the voices of his friends moving along the trench which restores his courage. “At once a new warmth flows through me. These voices, these few quiet words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall me at a bound from the terrible loneliness and fear of…
Many men were destroyed by the war mentally. The Soldiers that survived the war and came home almost all had PTSD and were mentally ill from what they had seen or experienced. (Chapter 5, pg.87) "The war has ruined us for everything” This quote means that what they have seen and done in the war has transformed them into only being able to think of and understand the life of war. War becomes what they live and breath and cannot comprehend with other jobs that do not relate to war and the horrifying killing that they were trained to do. Paul was destroyed by the war when he was in a shelling whole and an enemy jumped into it with him and Paul stabbed…
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.…
Paul Baumer leaves for the western front a young boy, but as All Quiet on the Western Front goes on, Paul becomes more of a soulless soldier. Multiple events while fighting for Germany caused Paul to become this way. He began pushing away his family, friends, everyone, everything. This was a technique he used to survive. He cut off all emotions to become the best possible soldier he could be. When Paul and his friends signed up to go overseas, and fight for Germany, they had the idea planted in their heads that their actions were actions of patriotism. They never stopped to think about the opposite side of the spectrum. Training gave the boys a chance to start to realize that enlisting in the war was no joke. The boys didn't fully understand how brutal and violent the war was until they were out, fighting in total war.…
War is often viewed as one of the most dangerous and brutal events ever created. It utterly destroys the humanity and mental state of soldiers fighting in the war. In All Quiet on the Western Front, a world renowned war novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the epigraph states that this novel “will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” Staying true to this quote, Remarque tells of the horrors of World War I and fittingly describes the effects that war has on humans through the eyes of the protagonist, Paul Bäumer. In his epigraph Remarque says, “this book is to be neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure.” Except for a few notable exceptions,…
"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.…