The Changes of the Western Front War, irrefutably, changes the mentality and ableness of a person beyond recognition. Through the hardships recruits and veterans face on the front lines, many come back as different people. Through their experiences, they take back gruesome images, and traumatic experiences. Many do not even return from the battlefield. German casualties in World War I were around “1.7 to 2 million”, and about “65% of all mobilized men were casualties” (Rabideau 1), many of whom were young recruits enlisted straight out of school. In Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, the author explores the horrors of the war. Remarque writes about famine amongst the ranks of soldiers, the casualties of war, the constant terror of attacks, and the horrendous diseases that plague many soldiers in his World War I-era novel. Remarque’s novel is centered around a group of German schoolboys, who enroll in the army due to the patriotic and consistent recommendations of their teacher. The novel primarily focuses on one of the schoolboys, Paul Bäumer, and the terrible tragedies Bäumer suffers throughout the war. Before Remarque’s novel, many war novels focused on the patriotism and welfare of war, omitting the dark reality that was …show more content…
Although these novels focus on a false reality of wars, Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front illustrates Bäumer’s horrifying experiences that he and his regiment, the Second Company, faces throughout the front lines of World War I, along with the physical and emotional