All Quiet On The Western Front: An Analysis

People identify one another in a variety of different ways. Whether it’s their skills, their features, or what they say, identifying people can be difficult, especially while the rest of society preaches the opposite. In the events of the past as significant as war, society’s view of the enemy poses many burdens for the soldiers. One of the greatest war novels of all time All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, starts to draw out these hardships of the war for the readers. The most common and most impactful trial war soldiers face is the a vague notion of the enemy. Embedded in that notion is a purposeful and problematic lack of humanity. A solution to this complication at hand lies within the identification of the enemy to

As simple as this task, it takes its toll on every recruit due to the internal battle with their humanity. The character who readers follow Paul Baumer, represents complications the simple task entails. While fighting along the front line, Paul recognizes that “[they’ve] become wild beasts” (113) through the ferocious warfare. As an act of resistance and “with the butt of his rifle Kat smashes to pulp the face of one of the wounded machine-gunners. [They] bayonet the others before they have time to get out their bombs”(116). In this particular occurrence, Paul does not identify the enemy he attacks. He merely mentions his enemy’s face without specificity. By describing the man only as “a wounded machine-gunner,” Paul represents the lack of humanity created when soldiers view the enemy as nothing more than a pawn in war. Paul fails to distinguish his enemies making his attack much more vicious. The more monstrous the attacks, the more effect these blood bath’s have on the soldier's' mental conditions. While the wounded man remains faceless, Paul’s decreasing humanity becomes very evident. His humanity only returns once the enemy starts to be

Through the growth of his rediscovered humanity, very humane feelings such as sympathy are revealed. Sympathy comes from the recognition that both sides of war are more similar than they care to admit. While bedridden in a hospital, Paul wrestled with the thoughts that “a man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. A hospital alone is war”(263). After the traumatic experiences he suffered through, Paul made mental growth in the human aspect. He figured out that “there are still human faces” even in his enemies. Further in this realization he sympathizes with the rest of the wounded soldiers stuck in similar hospitals all over the enemy lines. This identification attaches Paul to the enemy, positively affecting his mental condition. He recognizes that he is not as drastically different as he thought which ultimately changes his outlook on the war. By connecting himself to the enemy, it’s as if he is fighting his comrades and it is this revelation which was only feasible through the effects of recognition and identification with the