All Quiet on the Western Front is a deep, multi-faceted story that, on its face, is nothing more than a tale of war. Examining it closer, however, reveals an in-depth insight into the mind of a soldier, manifested in the character of Paul Baumer. Over the course of the story, Baumer struggles to find himself as his views on the war evolve and mature. He comes to understand that what he once was and could have been, has been crushed by drill and combat. Baumer's change in outlook on the war that it is an evil done on society is manifested in two events: His two weeks of leave and his stabbing of the French soldier. These cement his belief that the war is not heroic but steals the lives of innocent people, not simply through death but, more importantly, emotionally and mentally. These events primarily reinforce his beliefs and feelings on the war. During Baumer's two week leave from the front, he discovers how life on the front has transformed him from his youth to a person he does not recognize any longer. As he travels home, he begins to feel more and more estranged the farther from the front he goes. By the time he is home, he realizes nothing is familiar to him. He has trouble speaking to his family, and when putting on civilian clothes for the first time since his return, he does not seem to recognize himself in the mirror. This is significant, as it symbolizes how he has developed a soldier mentality that has completely changed him mentally. Later, Baumer meets several others in town who engage him with questions about the front. They ask him about the front, expecting heroic stories that support their perspective of the war. When Baumer gives his account, they dismiss it. They see him as simply a worker who cannot grasp the f... ... middle of paper ... ...gins to think critically about the world around him. This rings true, as whenever he is away from the trenches and his comrades, he analyzes the war and his own reality more. As soon as he returns to his comrades in the trench, he is pulled back in. Baumer glimpses the beliefs that he has developed through events such as these, but the trenches crush higher thought and as such, in order to survive and stay sane on the battlefield, he must turn back and think nothing of them. In the beginning, Baumer views the war with a fairly nationalistic attitude, as in the war being a necessary evil. Through the events he describes, however, these views change to a clear-sighted view of the war as a senseless struggle and burden put upon good men, like his school fellows, by those with power, and supported by those such as his schoolmaster, who know nothing of the reality of it.
Before Bäumer gets leave to return to his family, he often discusses how the war has changed him and his comrades. However, he does not understand to the great extent in which he has changed until he returns to his old life. Seeing his family, his old home, his bedroom, his piano, and dressing in his old clothes is a direct confrontation with the distance the war has created between his old self and his new self. "A sense of strangeness will not leave me; I cannot feel at home amongst these things... I am not myself there. There is a distance, a veil between us." (160) It is heartbreaking for Bäumer to see his family because he has learned to disconnect his emotions in the war. Once soldiers train themselves to be so disconnected, it is different to reverse the effect.
In the beginning Baumer enters the war as a recruit and begins to see the reality of war. During training he has to remake the officer’s bed 14 times. The entire training course was marching, which does not help them at all fighting in the trenches. “I have remade his bed fourteen times in one morning. Each time he had some fault to find and pulled it to pieces” (26). Here Baumer describes how his commanding officer makes him do over a simple task over and over for absolutely no reason.
Paul Baumer and Archy are two idealistic young men in search of the appropriate choice to make as citizens of their respective countries. Paul Baumer has been on the receiving end of numerous years of preaching on patriotism, allegiance and nationalistic ideals. Similarly, Archy feels an almost instinctual obligation to fight for his country. Both of these characters do possess a solid understanding of what loyalty to one’s country means. Unfortunately, neither of the two is aware of exactly why their countries are at war. If they did realize the true motivation of their countries in the war, they might also realize that these goals do not correspond with their own.
The killing and death of WW I depicted in the novel desensitizes Bäumer to the reality that death is now a regular and driving force in his life, and that each human life is no longer sacred and precious. Bäumer feels great emotion and sadness when one of his childhood friends, Kemmerich, dies early in the war. Bäumer expresses his emotional despair after Kemmerich's death, stating, "I become faint, all at once I cannot do any more. I won't revile any more, it is senseless, I could drop down and never rise up again" (Remarque 32). Because this is one of the first deaths that Bäumer witnesses personally and because Bäumer and Kemmerich were childhood friends, the emotional impact is even greater. However, not all the deaths of his comrades effect him in such a powerful manner. The fighting gets to a point at which Bäumer...
Paul Baumer is a 19-year-old volunteer to the German army during World War I. He and his classmates charge fresh out of high school into military service, hounded by the nationalist ranting of a feverish schoolmaster, Kantorek. Though not all of them want to enlist, they do so in order to save face. Their first stop is boot camp, where life is still laughter and games. “Where are all the medals?” asks one. “Just wait a month and I’ll have them,” comes the boisterous response. This is their last vestige of boyhood.
The story of several schoolmates who symbolize a generation destroyed by the dehumanisation of the First World War, All Quiet on the Western Front tells of the men who died, and the tragically changed lives of those who survived. Remarque follows the story of Paul Bäumer, a young infantryman, from his last days of school to his death three years later. Whereas the journey motif is typically used to portray a positive character development, that of Paul is deliberately the opposite. In what has been dubbed the greatest antiwar novel of all time, Remarque depicts the way in which Paul is snatched away from humanity by the brutality of war. However while Paul and his comrades become separated from society, and begin to rely on their basic survival instincts, in their own surroundings they still show humane qualities such as compassion, camaraderie, support and remorse. Paul’s transformation from human to soldier begins in training camp, and is reinforced by the trauma at the front. His return home further alienates him from society, and Paul begins to feel safe at the front with his friends. Nonetheless throughout the novel suffering and mortality bare Paul’s true side, and he momentarily regains his former self. Bäumer, the German word for tree, is an early indication that Paul must remain firmly rooted in reality to survive the brutality of war.
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 noticed that he wasn’t fighting savages; he was fighting a man just like himself with a family. This part was really touching and changed my whole perspective of war. Things like this were scattered throughout the book, and it made me look at war differently. Since this book was short and concise, it was never boring, and didn’t have unnecessary details so it kept the plot going. Sometimes I feel there was a lack of details for example, the character’s physical characteristics were never solidly defined, so a lot was left to the reader to decide the character’s appearance. Another aspect of this book I enjoyed was the gruesome description of the war itself. Such as the rat-infested trenches, corpses scattered across the ground, and the description of the warfare. This was one the reasons that the psychological terrors were easily conveyed. Without the description of the war, the book would not of had the same effect. We were able to clearly see the horrible situations, which the soldiers lived in, ...
Jünger’s opening chapter recalls the enthusiastic first thoughts on entering the war, upon arrival in Champagne, “Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war .” Though the illusion was soon dispelled, throughout the novel Jünger did not seem to be phased by the reality of his mission. When Jünger described reaching Orainville, he wrote, “We saw only a few, ragged, shy civilians; everywhere eels soldiers in worn tattered tunics, with faces weather-beaten and often with a heavy growth of beard, strolling along at a slow pace, or standing in little clusters in doorways, watching our arrival with ribald remarks .” This is Jünger’s first of a pattern of acc...
Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times go by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings, especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital. Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men. They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country. Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war. Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled. It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him. They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up. Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect. Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge. Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment. Training camp is as death and destruction. Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is. The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line. The front line is the most brutal part of the war. The front line is the place in which the battles are fought. Battles can only be described in one word- chaos. Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side. This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired. In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man. First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life. He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed. The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side. The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.
Paul Baumer a young 19-year-old poet who is about to go through the most physically and mentally demanding time in his life, but Comradeship is just one of the many traits that will help him through the most demanding time in his life. Paul is a polite, well-built boy with the urge to fight and get on the front lines. He enlisted with three other classmates from his school Albert Kropp, Muller and Leer. The four men all have a stronger relationship with each other that is unbreakable.
Instead, they are replaced by weapons or merely actions themselves, “a blow from a spade cleaves through his face. . . . a bayonet jabs into his back” (116). Baumer is possibly attempting to take the humans on his side of the war away from the inhumane scene. He knows the men behind the weapons and actions, and Baumer finds out that many of his fellow German soldiers do not fully agree with the war. Therefore, he does not enjoy dissing his side of the war effort, and instead blames it on the weapons. Baumer seems used to seeing the deaths and brutal killings that take place on the front, “We have lost all feeling for one another.” He is stoic in his descriptions. Also, a majority of the time, Remarque writes in brief, concise sentences. Remarque wastes little time describing the horrifying acts. He hurriedly jumps from one scene to the next. This is because Baumer only cares about keeping himself alive during his time on the front. His thoughts are rushed. However, when reading this
Throughout the course of an individual’s lifespan, a person will be confronted many times with a challenging event which would result in a revelation of some sort. The novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque”, is filled to the brim with epiphanies on how the characters had an outlook on humanity and war. These epiphanies show the reader how the character grew and had a dynamic personality and how these changes in their personalities show put emphasis on certain topics and themes throughout the story. The main character, Paul Baumer, goes through his own epiphany throughout the novel and realizes that his war, World War 1 is not what it seems to be.
Contrasted with Baumer’s experiences during his visit home are his dealings with his fellow trench soldiers.
World War I had a great effect on the lives of Paul Baumer and the young men of his generation. These boys’ lives were dramatically changed by the war, and “even though they may have escaped its shells, [they] were destroyed by the war” (preface). In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer and the rest of his generation feel separated from the other men, lose their innocence, and experience comradeship as a result of the war.
As the soldier members of Paul Baumer’s company are slowly killed in battle, he becomes more and more disillusioned with the war, especially since he and his friends had enlisted with idealistic aims fed to them by their teacher Kantorek. Instead of patriotic glory and poetic war victories, Paul and his friends found defeat and ephemeral triumphs; instead of honor, they encountered dishonor; instead of personal growth and advancement, they found stagnation and watched their youthful dreams die. Through the war experiences of Paul Baumer as depicted in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the ultimate tragedy of war is revealed; it destroys the lives of its very agents – the soldiers – by crashing their dreams and claiming their lives for little discernible overall gain. Going To War Ultimately, Paul Baumer and his high school mates enthusiastically enlisted and went to war first out of a sense of youthful adventure. Barely out of their teens, Paul and his high school mates are not old enough to understand the socio-economic and political factors that characterized the outbreak of hostilities that ushered in World War 1.... ...