The Horrors of War
"I'm almost glad this war came along. It is like a test, isn't it, and only the things and people who've been evolving in the right way survive." Lepper Leppellier said this extraordinary quote in chapter nine. My interpretation of Lepper's quote was, the war had forced the men to abide by the rule of, "survival of the fittest." From the perspective of the war, Lepper implied that you need to be prepared mentally and physically for war; you also need to adapt to changes and mature to survive. People and societies change in times of war. Some people, including Lepper, become manic-depressive and may possibly go insane. Others resort to suicide. However, war may make others feel important and patriotic. Gene, Lepper, and Finny all went through changes and had their own physical and emotional development.
Lepper was not ready to enlist in the army. He enlisted in the service for the wrong reasons. Lepper enlisted thinking that he would travel and ski and he was not prepared for the hardships of war itself. I think that Lepper went crazy because he wasn't mentally ready for warfare and, internally he could not comprehend all the dreadful facts of war. Lepper needed to mature and grow as an individual before considering enlisting in the service. He didn't realize the responsibility and commitment of being a solider.
Finny denied the war to himself and everyone else around him. Finny could not participate or help in the war effort, which made him feel helpless and useless. Finny didn't like this feeling, so he denied that there was a war going on at all. Finny told Gene his theory about how the war was made up by fat, old, men. Finny realized that the injury to his leg was not going to be temporary but permanent in many ways. This injury prevented him from enlisting in the army. Finny was in denial about the war all the way up to the point in the novel when he saw that Lepper really had gone crazy. Finny believed that there was really a war from that point on because his theory was; it takes a war to make a man crazy.
Gene had many aspects of the war to deal with in addition to his emotional stress.
War can be as damaging to the human body as it is to the mind. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, this idea that war causes psychological disorders is represented throughout the book through the main character, Paul Baumer. This book follows the lives of young soldiers in World War I. Together, these men create powerful bonds. They go through terrifying experiences that continue to strengthen their bonds, but also destroy their mental state. Through Paul’s eyes, Remarque shows the devastation that war has on the mind.
Although it starts after half the book is finished, one of the major examples of denying the truth in the novel is Finny denying the reality of the war. Though it is disclosed at the end that Finny knew all along about the war, he succeeds, after a little time, in making Gene truly believe in the non-existence of the war (although Gene claims that he did not really believe the story, his behavior around his classmates and his actions say otherwise). The first result we see of this denial is Finny’s confession of his bitterness towards the world because of his loss. This destroys the image we have of Finny as a “perfect” person because it shows that he blames the world for his accident. It also stuns Gene so much that he begins to do pull-ups, even though he has never done even ten before. With Finny’s verbal help, Gene manages to do thirty. This solidifies the friendship between them. After this moment, Finny decides to take Gene into his confidence and tells him he wanted to go to the 1944 Olympics, but that Gene will have to go instead, and goes on to start training Gene. Finally, after many mornings of hard training, Gene finally “[finds] his rhythm”. Superficially, it can be said that due to Finny’s ruse about the war, Gene became very...
Throughout the novel, Knowles utilizes negative diction in regards to the war to show that Gene views it negatively. Gene believes “happiness had disappeared along with rubber, silk, and many other staples, to be replaced by the wartime synthetic, high morale, for the Duration” (Knowles 202). He associates the war with the death of happiness. The negativity plagues everything he believes about the war. High morale, normally considered a good thing in a time of war, becomes bad in Gene’s eyes. He views it as “synthetic,” which implies fakeness or dishonesty. Gene also sees anything that he associates with the war as worse. When Leper calls himself psycho,
War changes people, with some changes being very dramatic and very quick. This is evident in the behavior of Norman Bowker, Bob “Rat” Kiley, and Tim O’Brien. These changes affected each person differently, but they all had dramatic changes to their personalities. These changes had very severe effects on each
Another boy in the story who was matured by the war was Leper. When he sees the movies about the ski troops, he thinks that it looks fun and he surprises everyone by enlisting. Leper does not quite know what he is getting into when he enlists. He thinks that it looks like a fun ski trip; he can serve his country and ski around the world at the same time.
Finny is very charismatic, athletic, and everyone tends to love him, even the teachers. Finny wants to join the war and be part of what was going on. However, when Finny breaks his leg and becomes crippled, he is in denial about the war. He says that now he believes that the war is fake and that it’s just a huge scheme. Right before he was about have an operation for his broken leg, the second time, Finny confesses his actual reason for being in denial towards the war, he says, “‘I’ve been writing to the Army and the Navy and the Marines and the Canadians and everybody else all winter. Did you know that? No, you didn’t know that. I used the Post Office in town as my return address. They all gave me the same answer after they saw my medical report on me. The answer was no soap. We can’t use you. I also wrote to the Coast Guard, the merchant Marines, I also wrote to General de Gaulle personally, I also wrote Chiang Kai-shek, and I was about ready to write to somebody in Russia.’” (Knowles 181-182). “‘I’ll hate it everywhere if I’m not in this war! Why do you think I kept saying there wasn’t any war all wint...
This time was dominated by extreme sternness and a strong belief in doing what is right. Knowles states, “If you broke the rules, then they broke you.” (Knowles, 1998, p. 65). This powerful quote is deep and symbolizes how unforgiving the world was during that time period. The author also states how much society was changing during the time of war and massive confusion. Knowles writes, “It’s like a test, isn’t it, and only the things and the people evolving the right way survive” (Knowles, 1998, p. 116). Gene is aware of the war and the changing society, but he is not fond of how it is changing everything that he knows. He eventually grows to resent the war and new society because it goes against everything that he knew. Knowles writes about how much the war is a subject of conflict for Gene many times throughout the novel, proving what a problem the changing society was for him.
War is a very tough and gruesome thing that people have to deal with even though no one likes it. It takes a special person to enlist and go fight for their country. Someone who's tough and can handle seeing the things they have to see day after day, no matter what just to defend their country. Now imagine being only fifteen and sneaking into the army just to do what's right and needs to be done. It was the mid 1940's while WWII is raging through Europe as Hitler and his numerous followers and soldiers are terrorizing mainly the Jewish population killing millions. Jack Raab, a fifteen year old boy, dreams of being a hero, so when he hears about what's going on he sees it as his chance to be one. Leaving his family in New York with his brothers
When Gene comes to terms with the accident causing Finny’s injury and leading to his death, Gene finds his separate peace. As Gene walks around the Devon School fifteen years after being a student, he says, “I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there” (204). Here Gene’s recognized confession demonstrates that he has removed himself from his innocence, thus allowing him to acknowledge accountability for Finny’s injury and reach his separate peace. Gene also takes away with him an understanding of how Finny never faces an enemy and completely loses his image of innocence. After his confession, Gene points out, “Only Phineas never was afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone. Other people experienced this fearful shock somewhere, this sighting of the enemy, and so began an obsessive labor of defense, began to parry the menace they saw facing them by developing a particular frame of mind” (204). This valuable comprehension impacts Gene and his separate peace, because he knows one who has no hatred is not afraid of any enemy. Although symbolizing an image of peace, Finny finds his separate peace once he accepts the presences of the time period’s events, specifically World War II. At the hospital, Finny was looking over the things that Gene had packed in his suitcase, because he broke his leg once again. While doing so, Finny tells Gene, “I wish to God there wasn’t any war. . . I don’t know if I can take this with a war on. . . What good are you in a war with a busted leg!” (189-190). Continuing to look through his suitcase, Finny goes on to Gene and says, “I’ve been writing to the Army and the Navy and the Marines and the Canadians and everybody else all winter. . .They all gave me the same answer
Through Baümer, Remarque examines how war makes man inhuman. He uses excellent words and phrases to describe crucial details to this theme. "The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts," (page #). Baümer and his classmates who enlisted into the army see the true reality of the war. They enter the war fresh from school, knowing nothing except the environment of hopeful youth and they come to a premature maturity with the war, their only home. "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. We are not youth any longer" (page #). They have lost their innocence. Everything they are taught, the world of work, duty, culture, and progress, are not the slightest use to them because the only thing they need to know is how to survive. They need to know how to escape the shells as well as the emotional and psychological torment of the war.
What is war really like all together? What makes war so horrifying? The horror of war is throughout All Quiet on the Western Front. For example Albert says the war has ruined them as young people and Paul agrees. “Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything." He is right. 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. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.” (Remarque, Chapter 5). The way the war has affected each soldier has changed them forever. The boys who were once school boys will never be the same.
We learn that when Henry comes home from the war, he is suffering from PTSD. "It was at least three years before Henry came home. By then I guess the whole war was solved in the governments mind, but for him it would keep on going" (444). PTSD changes a person, and it doesn 't always stem from war. Henry came back a completely different person. He was quiet, and he was mean. He could never sit still, unless he was posted in front of the color TV. But even then, he was uneasy, "But it was the kind of stillness that you see in a rabbit when it freezes and before it will bolt"
War changes a person in ways that can never be imagined. Living in a war as well as fighting in one is not an experience witnessed in everyday life. Seeing people die every time and everywhere you go can be seen as an unpleasant experience for any individual such as Henry. The experiences that Henry had embraced during the Vietnam War have caused him to become an enraged and paranoid being after the war. It has shaped him to become this individual of anxiety and with no emotions. The narrator says:
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that greatly helps in the understanding the effects war. The novel best shows the attitudes of the soldiers before the war and during the war. Before the war there are high morals and growing nationalist feelings. During the war however, the soldiers discover the trauma of war. They discover that it is a waste of time and their hopes and dreams of their life fly further and further away. The remains of Paul Baumer's company had moved behind the German front les for a short rest at the beginning of the novel. After Baumer became Paul's first dead schoolmate, Paul viewed the older generation bitterly, particularly Kantorek, the teacher who convinced Paul and his classmates to join the military. " While they taut that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already that death-throes are stronger.... And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone, and alone we must see it through."(P. 13) Paul felt completely betrayed. " We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted. Life is short." (P 139) Views of death and becoming more comfortable with their destiny in the r became more apparent throughout the novel. Paul loses faith in the war in each passing day. * Through out the novel it was evident that the war scarred the soldiers permanently mentally. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started.
This is an excellent example of how the war suddenly made the boys grow up into men. They had to face adulthood, and in order to do that, they had to become adults. Another boy in the story who was made to grow up by the war was Leper. When he sees the movies about the ski troops, he thinks that it looks fun, so he surprises everyone by enlisting. Leper did not quite know what he was getting into when he enlisted. He thought that it looked like a fun ski trip; he could serve his country and ski around the world at the same time. Most average teenagers are not faced with the pressure of a war and shortages of everything, and so Leper had to grow in order to handle the pressure of the war. But, in the process of growing, the pressure becomes too great. After a short time in the army, Leper goes crazy, and is labeled as a section eight discharge. But instead of having to go through that dishonorable fate, he escapes. Escaping is not a very good example of how much Leper grew, but it does show that a kid can grow up only so fast. The third, and last, character that shows growing from the war is Gene. At one point, Gene and Brinker decide to enlist together, but Gene backs out of it because he feels that he is not ready. This shows that Gene has begun to mature. Gene feels that he has some debt to pay or some peace to settle, perhaps, before he ever goes to war.