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.
Paul Baumer went through the epiphany that the war was created so that privileged leaders can fight from afar while the average man risks their life on the field. Baumer had these sudden moments of realization that other French and Russian soldiers are similar to him and his allies, Kat, Detering, Kropp and Kemmerich, the opposing side’s soldiers were just obeying orders given to them by a
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higher ranking soldiers. Paul first begins to create this epiphany upon his return home. Paul is in charge of watching Russian prisoner of wars and he begins observing them really closely. “ A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friend.” (pg 193-194) This quote shows about the realization that Baumer goes through because it shows that he understands that these prisoners are regular people just like Paul’s family members and Baumer even says the prisoners look like farmers in his town. Later, upon returning to the front, Paul is hiding from fire in a bomb shell hole where an enemy soldier comes in and Baumer immediately stabs him.
After closer investigating, Paul realizes that the soldier was a French soldier that had a family and he once again had his epiphany that the soldiers were humans too and they were just forced to fight in the war because of a command. Baumer even bandages the soldier up after stabbing him and he tries to take care of the soldier before his enemy slowly dies right in front of him.
Understanding that war is senseless and that the soldiers were pitted against each other because of a simple order was what made the epiphany so powerful in this novel. Paul finally understands why war is so horrible and this revelation further promotes the book as an anti-war book. Paul’s epiphany of how unnecessary war is, creates a tone of deep thought and revelation about the
war.
Paul Bäumer's leave from the war is an opportunity for him to see life removed from the harshness of war. As he makes the journey home, the closer he gets the more uncomfortable he feels. He describes the final part of his journey, "then at last the landscape becomes disturbing, mysterious, and familiar." (154) Rather than being filled with comfort at the familiarity of his homeland, he is uneasy. War has changed him to the extent in which he can no longer call the place where he grew up home. Bäumer visits with his mother and recognizes that ideally this is exactly what he wanted. "Everything I could have wished for has happened. I have come out of it safely and sit here beside her." (159) But ultimately he will decide that he should have never gone on leave because it is just too hard to be around his family and see how different he has become. Bäumer finds that it is easier to remain out on the war front than return to his family.
The story takes place through the eyes of a German infantryman named Paul Baumer. He is nineteen and just joined up with the German army after high school with the persuasion of one of his schoolteachers, Mr. Kantorek. Paul recalls how he would use all class period lecturing the students, peering through his spectacles and saying: "Won't you join up comrades?"(10). Here was a man who loved war. He loved the "glory" of war. He loved it so much as to persuade every boy in his class to join up with the army. He must have thought how proud they would be marching out onto that field in their military attire.
Towards the end of the book after more of his comrades were killed Baumer saw more of the futility of war. Even though it was clear to all the soldiers and Baumer that they were losing the war, they were still required to fight. More recruits were dumped into battles only to die due to their inexperience. “A single flyer routed two companies of them for a joke, just as they got off the train- before they ever heard of such a thing as cover”(237). This quote shows how all the new recruits were sent to their deaths, its describes how two companies of recruits were killed right when they got off the train to the front. They didn’t even get to learn how to survive because it was not taught in the training. Even though Baumer had learned to survive the war and had lasted longer than anyone else, he was still killed right before the war ended.
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.
Life for the soldiers in the beginning is a dramatic one as they are ordered up to the frontline to wire fences. The frontline makes Paul feel immediately different as described here. "As if something is inside us, in our blood, has been switched on." The front makes Paul more aware and switched on as if his senses and reactions are sharpened. I think Paul and his friends are frightened when they are near the front line. After they wire the fences and they are heading to the barracks their group start to be fired at by the enemy. They manage to get through the shelling unscathed but they hear a horse that has been shot. The horse makes a terrible noise of anguish and is in terrible pain and it has been shot as the author describes here. "The belly of one of the horses has been ripped open and it guts are trailing out." This shows that there are not just human casualties of war; the innocent lives of animals can be affected as much as humans who fight in wars. Detering-one soldier in Pauls group-says." It is the most despicable thing of all to drag animals into a war." I agree with Detering, as animals had no choice about going to war. On the way back to the trucks that would take them back to the barracks Paul Baumers company are hit again by heavy shelling and they have to take cover in a military graveyard. The shells blow huge holes in the graveyard and create large...
After their first two days of fighting, they return to their bunker, where they find neither safety nor comfort. A grizzled veteran, Kat, suggests these ‘fresh-faced boys’ should return to the classroom. The war steals their spiritual belief in the sanctity of human life with every man that they kill. This is best illustrated by Paul’s journey from anguish to rationalization of the killing of Gerard Duval; the printer turned enemy who leaps into the shell-hole already occupied by Paul. Paul struggles with the concept of killing a “brother”, not the enemy. He weeps despondently as war destroys his emotional being.
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.
All Quiet on the Western Front was a sad tale of Paul Bäumer, a lad just entering adulthood, who
After entering the war in young adulthood, the soldiers lost their innocence. Paul’s generation is called the Lost Generation because they have lost their childhood while in the war. When Paul visits home on leave he realizes that he will never be the same person who enlisted in the army. His pre-war life contains a boy who is now dead to him. While home on leave Paul says “I used to live in this room before I was a soldier” (170).
Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook. This book is written from a perspective foreign to most Americans.
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 future.
There was a drastic change in Paul’s mindset when he came home for his break. For example, he lied to Franz’s mother about his death. He said he had a quick death, but in reality, Franz had a slow and painful death. As a result of the war many soldiers also gave up on their beliefs as well. An example of this is seen in the film when Josef Behm, one of the young men participating in the war, dreamt of becoming a reverend. However, even if he survived the war, the images of blood and murder would still appear vividly in his mind. These memories and experiences totally contradict the principles in which a reverend or minister would believe in or live by. Wilfred Owen was an individual who had similar experiences to Paul Baumer in the war. In his poem “Mental Cases”, he states “These are the men whose minds the Dead have ravished. Memory fingers in their hair of murders, multitudinous murders they once witnessed.” All of the brutal murders that these soldiers witnessed have shaped their minds for the rest of time. Physically, these individuals will eventually heal. However these painful memories of blood, agony, and cries will stay very graphic in the minds of the soldiers, as if they occurred the day before. Siegfried Sassoon is a former English soldier who is known for his angry and compassionate poems regarding the first world war. Sassoon’s poem “The Poet As Hero” describes the minds of the soldiers and what their opinion was on the war and the casualties. He states “But now I 've said good-bye to Galahad, and am no more the knight of dreams and show: for lust and senseless hatred make me glad, and my killed friends are with me where I go” In other words before he experienced all of the tragedies, he was a pure and loving individual. However, after he has gone through all of the sorrow and grief that
In the beginning of the book, some of Paul’s fellow comrades had died. “Each man has another mess-tin full for the evening; and, what is more, there is a double ration of sausage and bread.” (1). Instead of mourning the death of their fellow soldiers, the men take advantage of this and enjoy their food. Then again, it was war and rations were very slim. Soon after, Kantorek sends Kropp a letter which reads “We are the Iron Youth”. (18). This statement is ironic in two ways. First of all, there is nothing “iron” about these young men. They have just gone into war unprepared and are getting by with little hope and much stress. Another ironic thing about this sentence is that they are not the youth, they are in their twenties, but mentally, they are “old folk”. The war has greatly impacted these men where their minds are set in more mature ways, no longer having younger fantasies as any other 20 year old would. As always, the best is saved for last. Paul Baumer is traumatized all throughout the book, becoming nervous and awaiting his death, which he figured would take place on the battlefield while being blown up by the shelling. Little did Baumer know, he would die peacefully. “Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.”
War is a scary place and you don't realize it until you are actual in the situation itself. “The big soldier hissed at him to shut up but he could not stop giggling and remembering the hot afternoon, and poor Billy Boy, and how they’d been drinking Coca-Cola from bright-red aluminium cans, and how they’d started on the day’s march, and how little while later poor Billy Boy stepped on a mine”(O’brien 202)
The older generation had an artificial illusion of what war is and although Paul's generation, the soldiers, loved their country, they were forced to distinguish reality from illusion. Because of this disti...