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Character Analysis: All Quiet On The Western Front

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All Quiet on The Western Front is a novel about growing up in the sense that the reader watches most characters, especially Paul, transform from young, patriotic school boys to shattered men destroyed by the war. Paul and his comrades face their obstacles together and never leave a man behind, but although they have the support of one another, the war still takes a severe mental toll on all the men. Paul enlists in the army with his school friends excited to fight for their country, but soon realises that war is nothing but horror, and forget what they are even fighting for. Throughout the war Paul has experienced so much terror that he can’t even begin to explain what war is like to his family, and finds that things he used to hold dearly …show more content…

After Kemmerich dies, Paul thinks, “Iron Youth. Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk.” (Remarque 18). The comrades are forced to look death in the face at a very young age which immediately takes away their chance to be a normal kid ever again. Having to kill someone, or seeing people be killed is hard for almost anyone, but at such a young age is alters how the comrades see humankind and puts a dark spin on the world. “We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits and feel ourselves to be stone-age veterans” (Remarque 35). Throughout the book the comrades are forced to do little things that all together take their innocence away. Even something as simple as shaving or using the latrine in the open forces the men to grow up and leave their childish ways behind. While talking his teachers, Paul states,“While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and dying. While they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger.” (Remarque 13). The adults who convinced Paul to enlist in the army immediately took away his innocence by telling him he should put his life on the line out of respect for his country. The moment Paul made the decision to enlist in the army he signed away his innocence as well. During their time at the front the men have been forced to do more mature things they aren’t used to which forces them to become more manly and stop acting like

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The book cover of, All Quiet on The Western Front, quotes to be ‘’the greatest war novel of all time’’. The author, Erich Remarque, experiencing war himself; uses the protagonist, Paul Baumer, to express his own background and horrors of World War One. With this, it alternates between his vividly dying memories of the times before the war and the nightmares of trench warfare; although a first person narrative. Erich served in combat during WW1 in Germany and was wounded five times. The last injury was very severe and kept him out of the war.

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Similarly, when Paul says, “We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves.” (87), he is saying that not only was their youth and innocence compromised when they entered the war, but also the drive and motivation to be adventurous also has fled.

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Because of this Paul starts believing he will have to start doing things that may cost him his life in the war and may cost his mentality. “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 insanity. Paul also experiences insanity by seeing so many of his comrades dying. “Besides us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror.

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728 Words | 3 Pages

All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. He was a German veteran of world war I and describes war’s extreme physical and mental stress on soldiers, and the effects of detachment from civilian life on them. The soldiers are in horrible conditions for most of the book and they witness many men die. The story follows a young soldier named Paul Baumer and tells that even though some survived the war they were destroyed by it mentally. Paul Baumer and his friends were members of 2nd company, a unit of German soldiers fighting during world war 1.

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Although Paul and his friends are raised by the older generation, the real enemies of Paul and his friends are the older generations because of the kaiser and the people in the country. Paul realizes that they are not fighting for themselves or the country but for the older generation instead. Paul points out that World War 1 is not needed, it is the kaiser that commands them to the war in chapter 8. He also compares with one of the soldiers he has killed and finds out that he has a family and friends just like Paul in chapter 9. Paul illustrates that french is not their enemy by telling the soldier that he will do what the man wants.

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In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque, Paul, a 19 year old German soldier in World War 1 struggles when confronted with the realities of war. He finds that war is quite unlike the tales of heroism that he and his young classmates were told at enlistment and instead drives each soldier down to the animalistic core of humanity that is unknown to most. The brutality of death in the book demonstrates Pauls's development into a shell of the man he once was. The death of Gerard Duval, in particular, reveals the soldier's transformation to instinctual living and how that affects a person.

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1245 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the story Paul shows that he cares about his comrades by protecting them from the dangers of war, and he also displays that he will guide them in war. Paul uses his skills of intelligence to guide his team in the trenches and at the front, and he passes on his knowledge and tricks of war to the new recruits. Not many soldiers have all of these qualities, which makes Paul stand out more than his comrades. Even today some men don't express the passion and leadership Paul shows in All Quiet on the Western Front, which brings up the fact that the war needs more men like Paul. To sum up, Paul is an honest and true man who will always be there for his comrades when needed, and he is a man the troops are proud to say is a patriotic

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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.

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This reveals how the death of a seemingly large number of men was an insignificant event overall, thus accentuating the meaningless nature of human life during war. Likewise, Remarque uses a similar style when Paul mentions in an offhand manner, that half of his company was killed during a particular battle. Instead of mourning the death of their comrades, the remaining men instead contemplate the possibility of obtaining extra food and rations. Similarly, when Paul ultimately dies at the conclusion of the novel, the army simply states that

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“All Quiet on The Western Front”, a fictional German war novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. It being an anti-war novel written as a monument for the unknown fallen soldiers... This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.

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Throughout the novel, Paul illustrates his compassion to his fellow recruits as the war goes on. Paul then goes on to say, “comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you were sensible too” (Remarque 223). At this point

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" All Quiet on the Western Front" examines the human condition and the devastating effects of war. The novel is set during World War I, a period in history with extreme violence, destruction, and loss of life. Remarque's novel shows a brutal picture of the war.

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The war novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque depicts one protagonist, Paul, as he undergoes a psychological transformation. Paul plays a role as a soldier fighting in World War I. His experiences during the war are not episodes the average person would simply experience. Alternatively, his experiences allow him to develop into a more sophisticated individual. Remarque illustrates these metamorphic experiences to expose his theme of the loss of not only people’s lives but also innocence and tranquility that occurs in war.

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We believe in such things no longer, we believe in war.” (Remarque 121) These teenagers had not found themselves before the war. Being soldiers is the only thing that they knew. Paul and his friends were also pushed to join the war; they never had a chance to find themselves on their own.

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734 Words | 3 Pages

The war, specifically commander Himmelstoss’ harsh training, nurtured a sense of loyalty in Paul. While training, Himmelstoss would put the boys through harsh exercises such as clearing snow out of the barrack-square with only a hand broom and a dustpan. He continually tried to break them down. However, according to Paul, it was this that developed “the finest thing that arose out of the war - comradeship” (27). This comradeship led to the development of Paul’s loyalty.

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