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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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Erich Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

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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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In chapter two, we see Paul reminiscing over his poems and plays that he wrote abundantly while at home. Paul and the other soldiers have lost their zeal and human need for curiosity and growth as a person. When out on the front, the risk of them dying is high and survival is of utmost priority. The men are currently living at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a psychological theory, in the Physiological section. This means that the top priorities of the men are eating, sleeping, and basic bodily functions while they did not spend time or energy focusing on meeting their personal potential or “self-actualization”, which is at the top of the pyramid.

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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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A Brief Summary Of The Opening Chapter Of All Quiet On The Western Front

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At this time, Paul and his friends still saw war as a heroic, and something of which to be proud, so they were naturally willing and enthusiastic to server their fatherland. They soon became aware, however, of the hardships they would have to face through the basic training, and soon after they faced their

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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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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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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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In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, Remarque retells the story of World War One from the viewpoint of the German soldier, Paul Baumer. Throughout the novel, Paul experiences the atrocities of this war, but unfortunately the effects of the war were worse than he had imagined. The war took a toll on the life of every single soldier, affecting their futures and families. However, the camaraderie the boys had formed allowed them to survive and ultimately was the only positive outcome of the war. Remarque includes sections throughout the novel that emphasize this deep bond that the soldiers share with one another.

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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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All Quiet On The Western Front: A Character Analysis

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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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All Quiet On The Western Front Theme Of Compassion

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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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Essay On The Consequences Of Combat And Camaraderie

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He portrays many of his own views on war through Paul's character. Thus allowing the reader to be more engaged and connected to the experiences Paul's going through. He shows his readers that in order for a soldier to survive he must lose his sense of innocence. "I nod. 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" (35).

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All Quiet On The Western Front Analysis Essay

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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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Paul and his friend went into the war very young. Some of the boys did not even finish high school, Before the war, all they had was schooling, and some other hobbies but not many. During the war, Paul thinks back to the stories he used to write, and he calls them childish. “We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress.

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