All Quiet On The Western Front Dbq

A group of soldiers connect as they experience the same events during their journey during the events and period of war. In All Quiet on the Western Front, the guys are depending on one another to support and handle the difficult moments together. As Paul returns to the front once again, most of the members of the army have experienced death during his leave. Paul and the rest of the group is experiencing war single-handed yet again as more people are lost in the troop. Paul describes how the group feels by saying, “Everyone is so, not only ourselves here-- the things that existed before no longer valid, and one practically knows them no more… It is as though formerly we were coins of different provinces; and now we are melted down, and all

bear the same stamp… First we are soldiers and afterwards, in a strange and shamefaced fashion, individual men as well… I often sit over against myself, as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnamable active principle that calls itself to life has adapted itself even to this form.” (Document D) As more deaths undertake the guys, they become lonelier. The feeling they acquired and is contained all the time, is uniting the men emotionally.

They lose the sense of individuality in war and start depending on other people in their troop. War is melting an individual person, but now bringing the whole troop together as if they are brothers, as if “formerly we were coin of different provinces.” Life in the army has “adopted” itself to make a one feel “strange” and alone for every soldier. In the army as more people are vulnerable, they unite as one power, as if they are like a family. In “Vladimir Lenin’s Speech to a Meeting of Soldier of Izmailovsky Regiment April 10, 1917” (Document G) states the build up to communism. As more people in the country are helpless during the hard times in the country, they unite together. All people in the country have the same feelings and thoughts toward the government and they are trying to change it together for their

well-being. As the people are changing the government they are changing people’s liberty as well as they are exposed to a new lifestyle. The people in the country are seeing the reality of war and their government as they connect through the experience they faced. Also in All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul and Kat, a soldier and a friend, connect as they are making food. They connect emotional as they cook and are not talking.

Paul feels like war is making him and Kat have the ability to gain a friendship. Paul says, “We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We do not talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another…What does he know of me or I of him. Formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do not even speak.” (Page 94) Paul feels a connection with Kat even though he does not know him. They are two different men, with two different life and interests that connected instantly because of war. They have a special bond as Paul feels similar to Kat in many ways. Paul thinks of the contrast between him and Kat was created because to the events in war. Paul is amazed how war can change a person's perspective, as before war Paul would not be friends with a person like Kat, but now he is emotionally connected to

him. As history and All Quiet on the Western Front show that a traumatic event can change the emotions of the people. They will immediately connect because of the hardships or traumatic experience they gained. Without knowing it, an an heroic government or deaths and hardships brought the people together to feel as if they are a family.