The Great War was one of the bloodiest wars in history. It resulted in over sixteen million deaths, along with twenty million injured. Its end required the surviving young soldiers who matured during the war, or the “Lost Generation” to start their lives from the ruins the war had left them in. They had no home to return to as they had hardly started their own lives when they enlisted in the army, hence they were left alone, unable to relate to any of the people who hadn’t fought in the war. All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, is about this generation of young men, their experiences in the war, and how they are affected by these experiences. Through the main character, Paul Baumer, Remarque describes the struggles that …show more content…
This is seen when he does not want to leave his mother as his leave is coming to an end. He says, “Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child- why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self controlled? I would like to weep and be comfortable too…” (183). Paul wants to weep on his mother’s lap and let all the emotions he is feeling out, but he is unable to do so because he does not want to relive his awful experiences. Paul would like to be comforted by his mother, as he did when he was a child. He has retained this part of himself from his childhood, even after his exposure to the war. What Paul goes through here is something that the Lost Generation went through when they returned from the war. They were unable to share their feelings and thoughts because they did not want to live through war all over again. Paul cannot let all his emotions loose for this exact …show more content…
As he observes the Russian prisoners and their habits, he explains, “I know nothing of them except that they are prisoners; and that is exactly what troubles me. Their life is obscure and guiltless;- if I could know more of them, what their names are, how they live, what they are waiting for, what their burdens are, then my emotions would have an object and might become sympathy. But as it is I perceive behind them only the suffering of the creature, the awful melancholy of life and the pitilessness of men" (193). Paul feels sorrow looking at the Russian soldiers. He says that if he knew more about them, he would feel sympathy. He expresses that he knows he is capable of feeling sympathy and other human emotions. He still has that part of his old self left with him. This also shows the type of scenes soldiers observed on a daily basis, and how one was affected by them. They were made to go against their human instincts, which would have been to help these Russian prisoners and be able to treat them with a humane and friendly respect. The fact that these young soldiers were forced to abandon their humanity for the war would have led to their feelings of being “lost”. These soldiers were left with the guilt of the actions they had been forced to commit- guilt that they could not move on from. When they returned home, they had forgotten what it felt like to be human and live a normal life.
Between the years of 1914 to 1918, the whole of Europe was locked in arms, not only for pride but mostly for survival. The years of war brought devastation upon all societies. Men were massacred in droves, food stuff dwindled, and at times an end seemed non-existent. The foundation of the first Great War, one can muse, began as a nationalistic race between rival nations. By the onset of 1914, once the Archduke Frendinad had been assassinated in Saravejo, the march for war became not just a nationalistic opinion, but now a frenzy to fight. In battle, unlike previous wars, new weaponry caused drastic alterations in strategy. No longer will armies stand to face their rivals on the plains. Now the war will be fought in trenches, hidden underground from the new, highly accurate artillery. In many respects, World War I was a war of artillery, gas, and mechanization. Except as new weapons were becoming essential for battle, the leaders, on all sides, appeared too inept to fight this new style of warfare. Generals, or any leader for that matter higher in the chain of command, sent their troops in massive assaults. Regardless of their losses there were no deviations from the main ideology of sending massive waves of men and shells to take a position. On an individual level, the scene of repeated assaults and mayhem of the front line did little to foster hope for their superiors or even for the naiveté of their fellow countrymen who were not fighting. I submit that in times of sheer madness and destitution, as during World War I, men banded together to form make-shift families for support and companionship when all seemed lost; as exemplified in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front.
Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front gives you detail and insight into the long, destructive “Great War”. Quickly, romantic illusions about combat are disintegrate. Enthusiastic teenage boys convinced to fight for their country by their patriotic teachers came back feeling part of a lost generation . This novel teaches us what a terrifying and painful experience World War I was for those fighting in the trenches on the front.
Paul believed the older generation "...ought to be mediators and guides to the world... to the future. / The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in [their] minds with greater insight and a more humane wisdom." Paul, his classmates, and a majority of their vulnerable generation completely trusted their role models and because of that trust were influenced and pressured into joining the war. They believed the older generation understood the truth behind war and would never send them to a dangerous or inhumane situation, "...but the first death [they] saw shattered this belief." The death caused the soldiers to realize that the experiences of their generation were more in line with reality than those of the older generation and that created a gap between the two. "While [the older generation] continued to write and talk, [Paul's generation] saw the wounded and dying. / While [the older generation] taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, [Paul's] already knew that death-throes are stronger."
Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front is based on World War I; it portrays themes involving suffering, comradeship, chance and dehumanization. The novel is narrated by Paul, a young soldier in the German military, who fights on the western front during The Great War. Like many German soldiers, Paul and his fellow friends join the war after listening to the patriotic language of the older generation and particularly Kantorek, a high school history teacher. After being exposed to unbelievable scenes on the front, Paul and his fellow friends realize that war is not as glorifying and heroic as the older generation has made it sound. Paul and his co-soldiers continuously see horrors of war leading them to become hardened, robot-like objects with one goal: the will to survive.
Throughout the novel, Paul, the main character faces many adversities that cause him to become less human. There are many instances where Paul and his fellow soldiers
Erich Maria Remarque's classic war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, deals with the many ways in which World War I affected people's lives, both the lives of soldiers on the front lines and the lives of people on the homefront. One of the most profound effects the war had was the way it made the soldiers see human life. Constant killing and death became a part of a soldier's daily life, and soldiers fighting on all sides of the war became accustomed to it. The atrocities and frequent deaths that the soldiers dealt with desensitized them to the reality of the vast quantities of people dying daily. The title character of the novel, Paul Bäumer, and his friends experience the devaluation of human life firsthand, and from these experiences they become stronger and learn to live as if every day were their last.
All our senses are assaulted: we see newly dead soldiers and long-dead corpses tossed up together in a cemetery (Chapter 4); we hear the unearthly screaming of the wounded horses (Chapter 4); we see and smell three layers of bodies, swelling up and belching gases, dumped into a huge shell hole (Chapter 6); and we can almost touch the naked bodies hanging in trees and the limbs lying around the battlefield (Chapter 9). The crying of the horses is especially terrible. Horses have nothing to do with making war. Their bodies gleam beautifully as they parade along--until the shells strike them. To Paul, their dying cries represent all of nature accusing Man, the great destroyer.
From sunrise to sunset, day after day, war demolishes men, cities, and hope. War has an effect on soldiers like nothing else, and sticks with them for life. The damage to a generation of men on both sides of the war was inestimable. Both the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” by Alan Seeger, demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men, mentally and physically, in war through diction, repetition, and personification.
He realizes that he has to lose feeling to survive, “That I have looked far as the only possibility of existence after this annihilation of a human emotion” (194). Paul loses all feeling which may be one of the main factors keeping him alive in battle, so that he does not allow himself to process the violence and horror to which he is exposed. Even in the short time where he thinks about all that he has lost he is immediately overwhelmed with feelings and there is no time for this on the battlefront. Paul has no empathy to the enemy and kills without even thinking, “We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form at some other man” (117). The tragedies during combat desensitize the men of normal human emotions such as remorse, empathy, guilt, and fear; the un-naturalness of killing another human dulls all of these feelings. People were not made to destroy each other, and as a natural defense to this they shut down all of their feelings. Paul 's normal thought of insecurity are gone as he says, “Since then, we have learned better than to be shy about such trifling immodesties. In time things far worse than that come easy to us” (8). The emotions of the average young man are lost at war as their entire lives are put into perspective. Paul 's young adulthood is lost and he does not feel shame in frivolous things any longer. His emotions are not the only thing he loses as he also disconnects from his past, present and
When Paul is about to go on his leave, he visits with his fellow soldiers and thinks to himself, “I will be away for six weeks - that is lucky, of course, but what may happen before I get back? Shall I meet all these fellows again?” (Remarque 152). Paul is fearing that his comrades will die in the war as he is on leave. Remarque utilizes this fear to show Paul’s true comradery with his friends and to show that a soldier has far more to worry about than himself in the war; a soldier always has friends to worry about. On top of that, Paul is worried about his mother and even says, “...how can it be that I must part from you...we have so much to say, and we shall never say it” (Remarque 184). Paul understands that he will most likely die in the war, and therefore, he dreads leaving his mother. Remarque adds this detail in to express how war often causes far more grief than ever thought of before. He uses it to show that war takes away much more than a man’s body, that it also takes away a man’s mind, and destroys his family with grief. With only a few ties to reality, Paul must fight through the cloudedness in his mind as well as the war.
“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.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul is morphed from an innocent child into a war veteran who has a new look on society. Paul used to have a carefree life where he was able to be a kid, but when he enlisted into the army it all changed. Paul became a person whose beliefs were changed because of the war. Paul doesn't believe in society anymore especially parents, elders, and school, which used to play a big part in his life. He changed his beliefs because society does not really understand how bad war really is and pushed many young men, who were not ready, into the army. Paul connects with his fellow soldiers because they are going through the same situation and feel the same emotions. Paul's beliefs were changed by the lies that were told to him.
People who have actually been through war know how horrible it is. Society on the other hand, while it believes it knows the horrors of war, can never understand or sympathize with a soldier’s situation. The only people who can understand war is those who have been through it so they can often feel alone if they are out of the military. Paul cannot even give a straight answer to his own father about his dad’s inquiries about war. Paul’s dad does not understand that people who have been in the war can in no way truly express the horrible things that that have seen and experienced. Nor can Paul fit in with the society who does not understand him. Paul and so many others were brought into the war so young that they know of nothing else other than war. Paul held these views on society as he said, “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 in to ruin.
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.
The author's main theme centers not only on the loss of innocence experienced by Paul and his comrades, but the loss of an entire generation to the war. Paul may be a German, but he may just as easily be French, English, or American. The soldiers of all nations watched their co...