In the battlefield, innocence is lost and men are transformed; yet all soldiers go through a three-step transformation that turns them into better soldiers, but worse men as well. In the novel “ All Quiet On The Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque, and in many war-time poems, a transformation among men is noticeable in which they lose innocence, become beasts and most importantly, they abandon all civilized sensibilities.
The moment a soldier leaves his everyday known life to go into the unknown world, he is exposed to the darkness and tragedies war has to offer. When this happens, loss of innocence is expected. The first example of this occurring is when Paul realizes how wonderful it would be to be a child again. “Am I crying? I put my hand to my eyes, it is fantastic; am I a child?” (4.43). In this quote it is evident that it is almost a treat for Paul to be crying because he is so deprived from feelings because it is the only way for him to survive. Paul also connects crying with being a child, which shows his connection between being innocent and youthful. In the Poem “Arms and The Boy” by Wilfred Owen the connection between being youthful and innocent is clear when a child is being introduced to weapons. When the narrator of the story says; “Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade. How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of bloods” he is hoping that this bayonet-blade will discard the innocence of the boy and replace it with a “hunger of blood”. This conscious of sorts in Wilfred Owens’s poem is convincing the boy who innocence isn’t needed as long as he has weapons, which will turn him into the man he needs to be and no longer a child. Once a soldier’s innocence is lost, he comes to notice he is less a m...
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...l for the dead, they are shooting without reason, which relates to the theme of the quote in Thomas Hardy’s “The Man He Killed”. “I shot him dead because… because he was my foe.” This is an example of a soldier simply shooting because he is told to, and he has lost all say for himself and is controlled by others. Civilized sensibilities make men reason with shooting a man, but without them, shooting a man is just another task that one is being told to complete.
Soldiers are following in the paths of their ancestors even in modern day war as they march into the lifestyle of insanity or death if they are one of the lucky few. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” and in multiple war time poems, the reality and horrors that many soldiers live on a regular day basis are developed through the paths that men go through in war year after year.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful novel that communicates many messages concerning war’s hidden horrors and gives insight into the unique experiences of soldiers. Remarque uses a wide array of language techniques and writing concepts to expose readers to truth of the simultaneously corrupt yet complex affair that is war. It is an important, genuine novel – the type that needs to exist to end dreadful human affairs, such as
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.
Away from the front lines, soldiers are perceived and act as individuals, however, when pulled to the front, they come together creating and inseparable bond of camaraderie. Remarque’s All Quite on the Western Front illustrates the true content of war. The soldiers of the front lines fought with a common purpose, putting aside other desires and denying personal needs, creating a flagrant bond of camaraderie. Through this camaraderie Paul Baumer finds life on the front lines bearable, as we see in the relationships the soldiers share. Through Paul’s protection of his comrades, the family like relationship between the soldiers and the development of a close bond during free time, Remarque shows that the most important aspect of war is undoubtedly camaraderie.
Soldiers, using their instinct alone, must set aside their humanity to survive during their time on the battlefield. When Paul and his friends reach the battlefront, they find that they “become on the instant human animals” (56). Because of their desire to survive, they must surrender their morals and beliefs to their primal instinct. In this instance, they become savage beasts, making it easier to kill on the field. Their former selves effectively die in the war, becoming “insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill” (116). The war takes a toll on
Many of Remarque’s ideas expressed in All Quiet on the Western Front were not completely new. Remarque emphasized things that portrayed the magnitude of issues soldiers face, and how the physical body and senses affects their emotional well-being. The ideas in All Quiet in the Western Front of not knowing the difference between sleep and death, seeing gruesome sights of people, and frustration towards people who cannot sympathize with soldiers, are also shown in Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Dug-Out”, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s “Vigil”, and Sassoon's’ “Suicide in the Trenches”.
The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers.
Many of the young officers who fought in the Great War enlisted in the army with glowing enthusiasm, believing that war was played in fancy uniforms with shiny swords. They considered war as a noble task, an exuberant journey filled with honor and glory. Yet, after a short period on the front, they discovered that they had been disillusioned by the war: fighting earned them nothing but hopelessness, death and terror. They had lost their lives to the lost cause of war, which also killed their innocence and youth. They were no longer boys but callous men. Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est", Pat Barker's novel Regeneration, and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, all portray the irony between the delusive glory of war and the gruesome reality of it, but whereas Owen and Sassoon treat the theme from a British point of view, Remarque allows us to look at it from the enemy's.
There is a major change in the men in this novel. At first, they are excited to join the army in order to help their country. After they see the truth about war, they learn very important assets of life such as death, destruction, and suffering. These emotions are learned in places like training camp, battles, and hospitals. All the men, dead or alive, obtained knowledge on how to deal with death, which is very important to one’s life.
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing the future, reducing the quality of his life. At the age of nineteen, Paul naively enlists in World War 1, blind to the fact he has now taken away his own childhood.
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.
“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another (263).” Powerful changes result from horrifying experiences. Paul Baumer, the protagonists of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front utters these words signifying the loss of his humanity and the reduction to a numbed creature, devoid of emotion. Paul’s character originates in the novel as a young adult, out for an adventure, and eager to serve his country. He never realizes the terrible pressures that war imposes on soldiers, and at the conclusion of the book the empty shell resembling Paul stands testament to this. Not only does Paul lose himself throughout the course of the war, but he loses each of his 20 classmates who volunteered with him, further emphasizing the terrible consequences of warfare. The heavy psychological demands of life in the trenches and the harsh reality of war strip Paul of his humanity and leave him with a body devoid of all sentiment and feeling.
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
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.
A lighthearted, immature, jovial boy gets thrown into the terrors of war. In the poem “Suicide in the Trenches”, the mood goes from spring to winter, happy to depressed, this soldier boy’s life was changed in the war. The soldier boy was transformed by the trenches, just like millions of other men who had to deal with these same conditions. Erich Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, echoes many aspects and themes this poem holds. The novel goes in depth and displays how the soldiers were forced to suppress and disconnect themselves from their feelings to simply survive emotionally and focus on fighting.
When many think of wars, the first thought that comes to mind is the land which was fought over and which side won. They never consider the psychological side effect soldiers endure during war. For many, this is the only side they see so there is no exposure except through writers such as Ernest Hemingway. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway captivates the realism of war through his own eyes. Drawing from his own observation and experiences as an ambulance driver, Hemingway shows the psychological damage of war through the destruction of human lives, uncommitted relationships, and lack of confidence.