War benefits no one, but consumes all. This idea is prevalent throughout Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. Entering the war in his late-teens, Paul gives up his youth and dreams as his life becomes intertwined with war. He stands as an example of the “Lost Generation”, the group of young men who readily enlisted into the war effort, leaving their innocence behind as all courageously walked onto the battlefield. The reader follows Paul as he transforms from an innocent recruit to a man of war; the reality of war led to the dehumanization of men and the destruction of moral standards.
Paul undergoes a destruction of morals as he first-handedly sees and becomes accustomed to the animalistic behaviors of war. He gives
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examples of the daily scenes at war saying, “We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the shell-hole; a lance-corporal crawls a mile and a half on his hands dragging his smashed knee after him”(134).
The phrases “skulls blown open”, “two feet cut off”, “splintered stumps”, and “smashed knee” portrays the bloodthirsty battlefield that soldiers have become used to. Dotted with commas and semicolons, repetitive word choice and length are used to illustrate the multiple forms of pain the soldiers experience and impose upon others. Similarly, the gruesome word choice uses imagery to give the reader a sense of discomfort towards the actions human beings inflicted upon one another. As the men become accustomed to brutal killing, emotions and morals are slowly pushed away, replaced by the dehumanized desire for murder. The poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” confirms Paul’s descriptions as it also describes the horrors of war, “GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!... But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-- Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light/As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”. The exclamation marks and capitalization depict an urgency and fear, but never does the author question why an individual would gas another person; this portrays the narrator as a …show more content…
soldier accustomed to the death and torture of others. While the words, “yelling out”, “stumbling”, and “drowning” describe the pain soldiers face, the poem does not show any sense of grief or worry for the gassed man, only describing the scene in great detail. As this piece is written for those unaccustomed to war, a simile is used, comparing this victim to “a man in fire or lime”, illustrating the immense amount of pain and hurt. Throughout the poem and many war writings, imagery is used regularly to describe horrendous experiences soldiers have become exceedingly familiar with as they themselves kill for a living. Placed in a situation where he could either kill or be killed, Paul stabs a wounded soldier from a place of desperation and fear.
As he stands alone in a trench with a helpless enemy soldier, Paul describes, “This is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing. Kat and Kropp and Muller have experienced it already, when they have hit someone; it happens to many, in hand-to-hand fighting especially”(221). The terms “killed with my hands”, “whose death is my doing”, and “hand-to-hand fighting” illustrate the fear and desperation Paul faces, emotions that have released an inhumane murder. As Paul continues to process the event that has taken place, the reader can tell that he is flustered and frantic through the short segments and multiple forms of punctuation in this passage. Throughout Paul’s descriptions and experiences, one can learn of the true existence of war, as young boys are forced into situations where an animalistic fear can wipe out all morals and virtues. While Paul describes his first-handed experience, the World War I poem, “Remorse” depicts one of the many scenes taking place during a war, “Remembering how he saw those Germans run,/Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees: /Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one/Livid with terror, clutching at his knees”(Sassoon). This poem is composed of multiple short fragments, separated by commas and colons; this portrays the narrator as an onlooker who
is only describing, with no urge to help or feel pity. The words “screaming for mercy”, “green-faced”, “dodged and darted”, and “livid with terror” describe an experience a soldier had to face on the battlefield, a reminder to the others what will occur if they do not strike first. The first description of the dying soldier was “German”; in war, one’s life loses all its importance, as quotas are set to establish the amount of deaths needed. The author uses imagery to paint a picture for the reader to fill in, allowing an image to be formed through creativity and emotional appeal. This passage leads the reader to feel shock towards the cruelty displayed in war, as soldiers have no choice but to kill or be killed, no longer seen as humans, but lifeless beings for murder. By the end of the war, soldiers had become seemingly lifeless and cut off; having lost all humanity through the constant warfare and death. As men became accustomed to the destruction and horrors of war, all begin to lose a sense of value towards human life. Paul describes this as he says, "Just as we turn into animals when we go up to the line, because that is the only thing which brings us through safely, so we turn into wags and loafers when we are resting, we want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they might be ornamented enough in peacetime, would be out of place here”(139). Paul uses the word “we” repetitively, showing that he is speaking for all of the men in the army; this dehumanization is not only for a few, but for the majority. He proceeds to describe the men as metaphorical “animals”, having no emotions for others, as everyone is for themselves. The passage is made up of a long sentence with many commas and semicolons, this portrays a long thought-provoking idea. Paul notices his lack of humanity but stands helplessly, understanding that having emotions can lead to death on the battlefield. Similarly, the World War I poem, “The Happy Warrior” places emphasis on the dehumanizing of the men as it describes, “ I saw him stab/And stab again/A well-killed Boche. This is the happy warrior, This is he…”(Read). This passage is split into many small sections through many forms of punctuation; this portrays the poem as a very brief and direct description of war, illustrating the battlefield as a place of pure terror where animalistic behaviors are released from men. This poems uses the words, “stab”, “well-killed”, and “happy warrior” to portray a blood-thirsty war without human emotion or instincts. The passage proceeds to lead the reader to imagine a sense of horror towards the reality of war, that war brings out a certain violence and dehumanization from men. Throughout the war, men were forced to lose all human emotions, becoming dehumanized as they spent their lives killing others. As men became accustomed to the harsh environment, all were encouraged to release their savagery towards the opposing sides. Surrounded by the dead and dying, Paul quickly learned to kill or be killed, that war is heartless and inhumane. Through the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, the reader can learn of the reality of war, that war is truly just glorified murder.
Paul and I are united on the grounds of age and nothing more, yet somehow, while following him through his service in the War, I feel connected to him. After finishing the novel, I ruminated on this idea for some time and eventually came to the conclusion that the connection I feel with Paul is a mixture of empathy and envy. I empathize with him because he put down the pen and took up the rifle in service of his country, just as I would do if called upon. I envy him because he exudes the qualities of a brilliant soldier, meticulous narrator, and man of faith even in times of mortal danger, especially in times of mortal danger. In the midst of the worst bombardment he has yet to face, Paul shines his brightest by illuminating in vivid detail not only the hellish onslaught unfolding around him, but also the intr...
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 goes 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 the novel they are enthusiastic about going into the war. After they see what war is really like, they do not 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.
To Pursue Remarque’s tone farther, his tone throughout this novel was rather easy to find because of the horrific, depressing, yet at the same time a little sympathetic, scenes. Paul explains a scene after a bombardment, “In the branches dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squatting in the fork of a tree, he still has his helmet on, otherwise he is entirely unclad. There is only half of him sitting up there, the top half, the legs are missing” (93). The bombs are killing several men at a time. Paul not only observes this in real life, he ultimately has to live through it. Once a war has been going on for a long period, the soldiers know that war is all about death.
Remarque uses a variety of techniques to display the gruesome affects that war has not only on soldiers but on the nation as a whole. One technique that Remarque uses is imagery. One example that shows the imagery that Remarque displays occurs in chapter six when Paul Baumer talks about what the French do to the German prisoners who carry bayonets that obtain a saw on their blunt edges: "Some of our men were found whose noses were cut off and their eyes poked out with their own saw bayonets. Their mouths and noses were stuffed with sawdust so that they suffocated" (Remarque 103). Remarque shows how horrible the opposing sides treated one another's prisoners. The details used make one think of how bad the war must be and how it changes one's perception of war. Another example Remarque uses to show the brutality of war is through the imagery of sound. In chapter four Paul talks about the paranoia everyone gets when they hear the loud death cries of the wounded horses at the front: "We can bear almost anything. But now the sweat breaks out on us. We must get up and run no matter where, but where these cries can no linger be heard" (Remarque 63-64). The soldiers at war can handle hearing the bombs and shells going off never ending at the front in a small tight trench, but they cannot bear the cries of the horses and become paranoid.
Paul’s books symbolize the shadow of war that has been casted upon him through the horrid violence. Paul’s
In addition, the brutal trait of the Corporal is revealed is when he makes his student soldiers do chores that are just savage. For example, he makes Paul remake, " his bed fourteen times in one morning. Each time he had some fault to find." (Page 26) It shows how brutal a man can be that a bed has to be made fourteen times and each time there is something wrong with it. Moreover, Himmelstoss has made Paul knead, " a pair of prehistoric boots that were as hard as iron for twenty hours.
Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that takes you through the life of a soldier in World War I. Remarque is accurately able to portray the episodes soldiers go through. All Quiet on the Western Front shows the change in attitudes of the men before and during the war. This novel is able to show the great change war has evolved to be. From lining your men up and charging in the eighteenth century, to digging and “living” in the trenches with rapid-fire machine guns, bombs, and flame-throwers being exposed in your trench a short five meters away. Remarque makes one actually feel the fun and then the tragedy of warfare. At the beginning of the novel Remarque gives you nationalist feelings through pride of Paul and the rest of the boys. However at the end of the war Remarque shows how pointless war really is. This is felt when everyone starts to die as the war progresses.
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.
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.
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 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.
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...
Paul and his company were once aspiring youth just graduating school thinking about having a wonderful life. Sometimes things don’t always play out the way you want. The effects of war on a soldier is another big theme in the novel. Paul describes how they have changed and how death doesn’t affect them anymore. “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defen...
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...