All Quiet On The Western Front Friendship Quotes

As author Alex Morritt once said “The word 'friend' has become so utterly void of meaning in a world governed by social media. How can anyone truly claim to have eleven hundred friends ? In my book that would involve making time to meet at least three of them every day of the year.” This fascinating perspective on friendship is one that is exhibited by both Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Man he Killed” as well as Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Although not related to social media, both of these books dehumanize the terms “friends” to simple objects, portraying ideas on how allies are deemed allies and enemies are deemed opponents in war, even though this may not be the case if one was to meet them in real life. However,

This idea is first introduced when the speaker says, "I shot him dead because - /Because he was my foe/ Just so: my foe of course he was/ That's clear enough; although”(Hardy, lines 9-12). This quote reveals how the speaker of the poem is unsure about his actions, as he tries to convince himself that his actions were moral. The dash represents a long pause, an action that doubtful individuals often do when convincing themselves. Through this passage, Hardy displays his ideas on how soldiers in war are stripped of their compassion, and are often placed in moral situations in which they do not know the difference between “right” and “wrong”. This same idea is also portrayed in Remarque’s novel, in which Baümer thinks, “ A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I cannot find my way back, I am shut out though I entreat earnestly and put forth all my strength,” (Remarque, 172). This passage depicts nearly identical ideas to those themes found in Hardy’s poem, however instead of feeling guilty by personally killing others, Baumer has a sense of alienation build inside him as he faces the consequences of war. These feelings of “foreignness” and the sensation of being “shut out” are feelings often gained

Hardy highlights this idea when the speaker of the poem says,“ You shoot a fellow down/ You'd treat if met where any bar is/ Or help to half-a-crown”(Hardy, 18-20). Through these final lines of the poem, Hardy reveals to the reader that in war, the opponents are simply deemed as “bad”, even though the soldiers do not know them in person. In this passage, the speaker's claims that if he had met his opponent at a bar or in an “off the battlefield” environment, they could have been friends, treating the man as if “met where any bar is”. Hardy’s poem is a physical expression of the idea that soldiers simply follow commands without any personal thought. Once again, Remarque displays this same theme of dehumanization in war through different means, in which Baümer says, “We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers--we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.”(Remarque, 58). In this quote, it is revealed that Baumer and the other soldiers are “regular” humans when off the battlefield, but immediately altered and identified as “instant animals” when “we reach the zone where the front begins,” only being allowed to listen to their reporting officers and not think for themselves. The first half of