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Many young men came into the first world war honored and excited to be able to fight for their country. Little did they know what was ahead of them. As they were drafted and being encouraged to enlist in war they had no clue what they were getting into or who they would become. Most all that survived the war became a completely different person by the end after being stripped away from their innocence and youth. Erich Maria Remarque illustrates this loss of innocence and youth in his novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, through the character of Paul Baumer, the symbol of the coffins, and Paul’s visit home.
Remarque displays the loss of innocence and youth in war through Paul’s thoughts. Paul is explaining what he and many others had to do
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in order to prepare for war physically and mentally “We became hard, suspicious, pitiless, vicious, tough-and that was good; for these attributes were just what we lacked. Had we gone into the training most of us would certainly have gone mad. Only thus were we prepared for what awaited us. We did not break down, but adapted ourselves; our twenty years, which made many another thing so grievous, helped us in this” (Remarque 26).The boys faced terrible living conditions during training which ultimately prepared but every minute was a struggle.
The author includes this information because it is much easier for the reader to imagine these living conditions compared to war. It also an example of what the boys have gone through to get to where they are at this point in the novel. However, the young men are somewhat grateful that the training had prepared them for the misery ahead. Remarque uses strong adjectives such as hard, suspicious, pitiless, vicious, and tough to show how intense their transformation was. Remarque also explains later how their generation will be much different than all the others.“’ 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 war’” (Remarque 87-88). At this point in the novel Remarque completely describes what it is like to have your childhood and innocence ripped away from you so quickly and in such a horrid way. War killed the …show more content…
life and hope in these young men. Their lives were full of so much potential before they were stripped away and forced to kill other young men just like them. They were never given the opportunities that young adults get to enjoy, embrace, and even stress about. They were only given the opportunity to live to fight. Finally, Remarque includes how Paul’s stamina has changed from the beginning to the end of the war.“Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experiences we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way any more” (Remarque 294). Aul and the other soldiers are burnt out from fighting. They no longer have the excitement, optimism, and patriotism that they had at the beginning of the war. Remarque lists five different reasons,weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope, the soldiers will not fit in when they return home and how things would have been different had they gone home sooner. Remarque also portrays the loss of soldier’s youth and innocence through the symbol of coffins throughout the text. The men are in the middle of a very intense battle and in order to survive, Paul is forced to take cover in a coffin.“But the shelling is stronger than everything. It wipes out the sensibilities, I merely crawl still deeper in the coffin, it should protect me, and especially as Death himself lies in it too” (Remarque 69). Remarque uses irony in this point of the book to display the circumstances that the men are living through and h.ow that has shaped who they will become. In this case a coffin which is usually a symbol for death saves Paul’s life. It shows how most of the soldiers will not make it out of the war and even the ones that do the person they once were will not.The men are right about to go back out on the front in a battle that is going to be very deadly.“On the way we pass a school-house. Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of resin, and pine, and the forest. There are at least a hundred” (Remarque 99). The new, freshly made coffins foreshadow the outcome of this upcoming battle. It reveals that they are expecting many deaths by the end of it. It also symbolizes the death of the young men’s innocence and youth because the coffins are stacked up the school house. The school house used to represent their futures, bright and full of potential, but now their futures are dark and full of death. Loss of innocence and youth is also established in Paul’s trip back home on leave.
Paul is gifted a leave and returns home to his family but doesn’t feel comfortable there.“I breathe deeply and say over to myself: "You are at home; you are at home." But a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I can find nothing of myself in all these things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there is my case of butterflies, and there is the mahogany piano – but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a veil between us” (Remarque 160). No matter how hard Paul tries he cannot feel at home. He feels separated from his old life since the war. His childhood is gone, and his old life and memories forgotten. The war has stripped him from the boy he once was and forced him into the man he is today for better or for worse. After a rough day in town Paul is very discouraged by his leave so far. He is in the middle of realising he does not belong in civilian life anymore which is heartbreaking to such a young man.“I go back home and throw my uniform into a corner; I had intended to change it in any case. Then I take out my civilian clothes from the wardrobe and put them on. I feel awkward. The suit is rather tight and short, I have grown in the army. Collar and tie give me some trouble. In the end my sister ties the boat for me. But howlight the suit is, it feels as though I had nothing on but a shirt and underpants. I look at myself in the glass. It is a strange sight. A sunburnt,
overgrown candidate for confirmation gaze at me in astonishment” (Remarque 164). Paul throws his uniform in a corner as if to punish them he is angry by how the war has changed him and has made him feel uncomfortable in is own home. The way Remarque is describing the civilian clothes as “awkward” also resembles how Paul is feeling in civilian life. By describing him as an “overgrown candidate for confirmation” tells us that the clothes Paul has from his youth are childish and young. He has outgrown them physically because he has gotten much stronger and mentally because of all of the traumatic experiences he's had to endure.Paul is reflecting on how he has changed because of the war and how that has affected who he is at home.“I imagined leave would be different from this. Indeed, it was different a year ago. It is I of course that have changed in the interval. There lies a gulf between that time and to-day. At that time I still knew nothing about the war, we had only been in quiet sectors. But now I see that I have been crushed without knowing it. I find I do not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world” (Remarque 168). Paul now realizes that it is not his home that has changed but him. He can no longer enjoy or live like he used to. Paul is a completely different man since he entered the war. He started out as a young boy with a fragile mind but was then forced to change and endure many terrifying events in the short time of his life that he was in the war, which still managed to completely change his mind and his life. By writing this book Erich Maria Remarque gives us a better understanding to what war does to people physically and mentally. It gives us a view of soldiers that we may have never been able to see. It also gives us more information on what living with PTSD which allows us to better understand the disorder so we can figure out how to treat people and possibly even prevent it. But most importantly it strikes a conversation. Is the outcome of war really greater than the cost?
The next day, Paul receives seventeen days’ leave from the company commander. After, he needs to report for a course of training to a camp on the moors. That evening, Paul buys his comrades drinks at the canteen. He wonders if he will ever see them again. At night, they visit the French women to explain that they are leaving to the front. Paul tells her he will never see her again, but she is indifferent; he realizes that his leave doesn’t affect her in any way.
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 go 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 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. Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men. They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country. Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war. Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled. It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him. They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up. Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect. Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge. Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment. Training camp is as death and destruction. Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is. The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line. The front line is the most brutal part of the war. The front line is the place in which the battles are fought. Battles can only be described in one word- chaos. Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side. This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired. In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man. First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life. He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed. The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side. The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.
War can destroy a young man mentally and physically. One might say that nothing good comes out of war, but in Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, there is one positive characteristic: comradeship. Paul and his friends give Himmelstoss a beating in which he deserves due to his training tactics. This starts the brotherhood of this tiny group. As explosions and gunfire sound off a young recruit in his first battle is gun-shy and seeks reassurance in Paul's chest and arms, and Paul gently tells him that he will get used to it. The relationship between Paul and Kat is only found during war, in which nothing can break them apart. The comradeship between soldiers at war is what keeps them alive, that being the only good quality to come out of war.
He arrives back at his town, unused to the total absence of shells. He wonders how the populations can live such civil lives when there are such horrors occurring at the front. Sitting in his room, he attempts to recapture his innocence of youth preceding the war. But he is now of a lost generation, he has been estranged from his previous life and war is now the only thing he can believe in. It has ruined him in an irreversible way and has displayed a side of life which causes a childhood to vanish alongside any ambitions subsequent to the war in a civil life. They entered the war as mere children, yet they rapidly become adults. The only ideas as an adult they know are those of war. They have not experienced adulthood before so they cannot imagine what it will be lie when they return. His incompatibility is shown immediately after he arrives at the station of his home town. ”On the platform I look round; I know no one among all the people hurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: "Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!"—She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it.” He is now aware of what she is
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.
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.
Remarque demonstrates Baumer's disaffiliation from the traditional by emphasizing the language of Baumer's pre- and post-enlistment societies. Baumer either can not, or chooses not to, communicate truthfully with those representatives of his pre-enlistment and innocent days. Further, he is repulsed by the banal and meaningless language that is used by members of that society. As he becomes alienated from his former, traditional, society, Baumer simultaneously is able to communicate effectively only with his military comrades. Since the novel is told from the first person point of view, the reader can see how the words Baumer speaks are at variance with his true feelings. In his preface to the novel, Remarque maintains that "a generation of men ... were destroyed by the war" (Remarque, All Quiet Preface). Indeed, in All Quiet on the Western Front, the meaning of language itself is, to a great extent, destroyed.
Even when the novel begins, all Paul has known is death, horror, fear, distress, and despair. He describes the other soldiers in his company, including his German school mates with whom he enlisted after constant lecturing from their school master, Kantorek. The pressures of nationalism and bravery had forced even the most reluctant students to enlist. However weeks of essential training caused any appeal the military may have held for them to be lost. Corporal Himmelstoss, the boys’ instructor, callously victimizes them with constant bed remaking, sweeping snow, softening stiff boot leather and crawling through the mud. While this seems to be somewhat cruel treatment, it was in fact beneficial for the soldiers.
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.
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).
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...
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.
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...