All Quiet On The Western Front By Erich Maria Remarque

The choice Erich Maria Remarque made to use first person point of view was more effective than using third person point of view because the reader is closer to the story and Paul. Throughout the novel, the readers can feel the pain and suffering Paul is going through in the war. This is more effective than third person because if it were third person it would be narrated, they wouldn't be part of the action, and wouldn't feel what Paul feels. For example, on page 16 Paul says, “I become faint, all at once I cannot do any more. I won't revile any more, it is senseless, I could drop down and never rise up again. We are by Kemmerich's bed. He is dead.” This example shows the emotional conflict he has with himself; he doesn't want to live anymore

For example, on page 13 when Paul reflects on how much in the army they pushed them to be stronger and to be like vicious animals he says that it's just what they needed to be able to survive the war, he also says, “We did not break down, but adapted ourselves.” This example shows how physically and mentally tougher he has gotten since starting the war in order to stay alive. Additionally, when Paul kills a man for the first time he is troubled by it at first but then on page 109 he says, “It was only because I had to lie there with him so long," I say. "After all, war is war.” This shows how war has mentally changed him. Before the war, his past self would've been deeply troubled if he knew he was going to kill a man, but now he has to look past it in order to keep fighting. The tone implies that he has to detach himself from his emotions for him to not go mad. The novel has an aspect that doesn’t fit Bildungsroman and that is Paul losing himself in the war. When Paul is on leave he notices he doesn't fit in civilization, the war has changed him too much. He feels like he's not the same person before the war and will never be the

Paul fell on October 1918, a day so quiet on the front. His death was peaceful as though he was glad it happened. The closing scene serves to release the tension for Paul and the readers that earlier scenes created because he is now resting, there is no more war, and there is no more suffering. Paul and the readers were taken back when Katczinsky died because he was Paul’s best friend with Paul’s death he is now reunited with him. The author might argue this ending is the most effective way to end his novel, as opposed to other outcomes for Paul because it is the only way for the readers to truly understand war. His friends survived three years in the war, but on the last months of World War I they didn’t survive. This represents that no one is prepared for war and any day could be their last. Additionally, Paul was the last of his classmates that volunteered in the war, to die. Their deaths represent the life they lost because they never had the chance to live their lives outside of the