All Quiet On The Western Front is a 20th century historical fiction novel that conveys a soldier’s war story. In the epigraph, it states that soldiers “even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by war.” meaning, war is an experience that torments a soldier’s mentality despite not being killed. It can cause mental problems such as depression or it can have made you lose a limb due to wounds or infections. Every soldier, despite how mentally stable they are, experiences some form of mental trauma from war. Like Murthy said, "War is hell... it has an impact on the people who take part that never heals" (Murthy). Paul Bäumer experiences a sense of depression on his regulated leave when “there is a distance” between his family and his past life (pg. 160). Despite being back at home and safe with his family, the war has destroyed that peacefulness that he experienced there in his childhood, and replaces it with numbing emotions. Whilst in the middle of the war, Baumer states,”I believe we are lost,” not in the context of orientation, but actually psychologically (pg. 123). He says how they “are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men,” meaning, the Great …show more content…
He has a thigh amputated due to war wounds. In modern days, soldiers typically don’t die from an amputation, but because in World War I they don’t have enough medical knowledge to keep someone from dying, people like Kemmerich did die. In the case that soldiers don’t die, they forever have the memories of war and the unbearable pain of what happened to their limb that got amputated. According to Bäumer, “there are splendid artificial limbs now” and that Kemmerich would “hardly know that there was anything missing” (pg. 28). That is true, however, not in Franz’s favor. Artificial limbs have come a long way since 1914, and are much safer, thus leading to more soldiers surviving after being shot and having an amputation