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All Quiet On The Western Paul's Influence On War

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Recommended: Emotional and psychological effects of war on soldiers

In the novel All Quiet on The Western by Erich Maria Remarque, Paul and his fellow soldiers are forced to fight for their lives. This lasting trauma seriously influences how he views his life back home and during the war. Although these soldiers were strongly influenced by higher authority, in the war they became aware of the harsh reality and soon felt disconnected from their previous life. These young men originally decide to join the war to show their patriotism. Paul describes how his positive view of this quickly transitions to something much worse. “The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief” (Remarque 12). The …show more content…

Once the soldiers were made aware of the realities of war they felt disconnected from their old life and the life they would have had. Paul describes this loss of feeling by saying “We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.” (Remarque 87). When the men were recruited they had a new found passion for life that was quickly ruined. This serious self-destruction that was forced upon them left a long lasting impact afterwards. The soldiers had an illusion of the joys of war that was immediately shattered. The war caused Paul and his friends' view on life to be completely ruined. They are continually forced to fight causing it to almost consume them completely. Paul describes the intense feelings war provokes by saying “Here, on the borders of death, life follows an amazingly simple course, it is limited to what is most necessary, all else lies buried in gloomy sleep; in that besides our primitiveness and our survival.” (Remarque 273). This statement shows how the soldiers slowly became aware of the violent loss of war. So much so that they were forced to bury happy memories and allow war to completely consume them. It shows the loss

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1. Erich Remarque’s purpose for writing All Quiet on the Western Front was to show the devastating effects of war on soldiers and to protest against the war. He does this by depicting the experiences of a group of young German soldiers who are fighting in World War I. One example of how Remarque fulfills this purpose is when the protagonist, Paul Baumer, reflects on the futility of war and the sacrifices soldiers are forced to make. On page 49, Paul says, "We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial - I believe we are lost."

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Because how Paul and his comrades were so young. They started to see the world differently after joining the war to the point, they start to feel saddened in living their life. “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world, and we had to shoot it to pieces. ”,(pg 87). During the war, Paul loses so much, even control of himself that all he felt in the war was mostly

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“breeding, education are changing…hardly recognizable any longer”(121)this shows how the norm for paul has become the war. Paul has been in the war for so long that when he returns home he feels out of place and later goes on to talk about he his new home is the front line. Towards the end of the book paul goes into great detail about how the war has drastically changed them all and that for those who have survived the war things will never be the same “few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit and most will be bewildered”(131). This depicts how paul and his generation will never fully recover from the war things will never be the same few will be able start over but most were scared and lost at war. Paul and his generation are considered the lost generation because they will never be able to fully recover from the war they will forever live in the war mentality because of PTSD or other mental health

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The book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque gives us a good understanding of what war was like for the people fighting on the front. When reading this book people can get a front hand experience of what it is like being in battle. Remarque wrote this book so well that often times you picture yourself actually with Paul and all his friends. The one thing you specifically get to see is how humanity affects warfare. Humanity affects our decisions in warfare because humans are selfish, have fear, and seek revenge.

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The war has dehumanized Paul to the point that he didn’t think twice about killing the soldier, until the soldier was dead. Soldiers in the war fight for their own survival rather than for the glory of their nation- they kill or will be killed. On the front lines, Paul learns to disconnect his mind from his feelings, suppressing his emotions in order to stay sane and survive. Because of this, Paul cannot express his feelings sufficiently and doesn’t feel comfortable at home with his family because they don’t understand what he has gone through in the war. Paul can’t voice his opinions about the war or talk about his experiences; the war has changed him.

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During the scene, Paul describes how he “[does] not think” and “make[s] no decision” which shows that the suffering of war has made Paul not consider the enemy as real people (216). The detachment that Paul demonstrates contributes to the idea that the notion of war makes people detach from empathetic views of the soldiers fought

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They are no longer young new recruits who fantasize about the war. They have seen the truth before their eyes and it has started destroying them. During the bombardment in chapter 6, Paul’s eyes lock with an enemy soldiers, and “for one mad moment the whole slaughter whirls like a circus around [Paul].” In that split second, Paul realizes that although they are fighting against one another, they are not truly enemies. The battlefield has turned them into “wild beasts.”

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For many more reasons it is seen as a unifying experience, but for reasons it is also an alienating experience. For example, Paul and his classmates left home at a young age to fight in the war and they also left school, this did not allow them the same opportunities that women that age would have received or even other men who did not join the war. It also alienated him from his family; he spent many months away from his family, in which his mother became ill and constantly thought of her son fighting for his life on the frontline. It became apparent in the book that he became so distant from the life he once lived when he returned home after he had been on the front. Paul’s relationship with his family was no longer present he mostly had thoughts of the war, which kept his mind preoccupied.

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The horrors of war ensured that no soldiers wanted to go and fight again if there was any type of solution possible. Another vivid description of the battlefield speaks of “dead horses, mules, dead men flying everywhere, tanks, guns, crippled, everywhere” (Charles Rook). The damage that the war took on the people in it was great. While many soldiers came in with a feeling of pride as they wanted to serve their country and many likely thought the war would be glorious. As the soldiers began seeing the harsh realities described in the quotes above the disillusionment began.

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Paul tries to associate with his family, but he has lost his innocence through his emotions. War causes soldiers to lose hope and complicates their return to everyday

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Paul explains that they are different people than they used to be in their memories when he says, “They are past, they belong to another world that is gone from us. In the barracks they called forth a rebellious, wild craving for their return; for then they were still bound to us, we belonged to them and they to us, even though we were already absent from them”(121). To the soldiers, their memories are long gone and tucked away in a completely different time. Back then, they were a different person. Now, their memories are absent from their personalities because the war has caused this to be so.

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However, when they were sent out into the midst of the war many of them realised the misconceptions they had and were led to believe. They became disillusioned as they realized that the war was much more brutal and horrific than they had previously believed. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Remarque effectively comments on the horrors of war from Paul’s perspective, especially when Paul comments on injuries the soldiers endure and witness by stating “We see men go on living with the top of their skulls missing; we see soldiers go on running when both their feet have been shot away…Another man…with his guts spilling out over his hands as he holds them in.” (Remarque,

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They had been damaged mentally and they cannot become their old selves. At the start of the book, Paul reflects on the line, "We are none of us older than twenty years old. " The tone of this line reflects the soldiers at the start of the book. They have completely changed after dealing with the horrors of the war. What humans are trained to do daily, is not as bad as what the soldiers were taught.

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Paul learns that war obtains the capability to demolish society. War destroys so many innocent people’s lives, whether it kills innocent human beings or shatters the innocence of those who fight in

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