Examples Of Abuse Of Power In All Quiet In The Western Front

Kevin Arenibal

Mrs. Goldsmith

English 4

17 October 2014

All Quiet In The Western Front : The Abuse of Power Many people in our society and in history abuse the power they have been granted; such as taking advantage of someone or manipulating someone with the ability to punish them if they don't agree.

For example, In the WW1 novel All Quiet In The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Paul, the narrator and main character, and his comrades discuss the abuses of power that Himmelstoss commanded them in their training days. Paul explains that Himmelstoss would have never acted so harsh on them in his former days as a postman. It is Kat who makes a statement, "Let a man be whatever you like in peacetime, what occupation is there in which

He can only do that in the army. It goes to the heads of them all, you see. And the more insignificant a man has been in civil life the worse it takes him" ( Remarque 44). what Kat is trying to say is that any man given some sort of power acts different and acts like a cruel leader. People with power abuse power because they have something regular people don’t have. In other words, if a normal guy in society was given power to do what he likes he will abuse the power and use in a negative way because he’s powerful and knows he can’t be punished. For Example, In an article titled Police Abuse of Power, Plain and Simple by Brandon Buskey, The author talks about that in Etowah County, Alabama that the city's Sheriff's Office has a Fourth Amendment problem because that about once a month a sheriff's car shows up, unannounced and at night to a family's home in Alabama.Uniformed officers walk to the family's door where the neighbors can witness everything. The problem is that they knock and demand to be let in, If the family refuses the police threaten them with arrest. Once inside, the officers

He basically says that power is evil if the person with power has too much of it . " One man must always have power over the other. The mischief is merely that each one has much too much power" (Remarque 44). What this quote is trying to say is that it is part of human nature to want power over humans and war makes people want more power because no one wants to listen to someone constantly telling them to do . For example, this relates to the novel Lord of The Flies by William Golding when a group of boys are stuck on an island who try to govern themselves with different ideas of how to run the island. Jack is manly the person who has power throughout the whole novel his biggest worry is having power that's all he cares about he's greety but there's nothing special about him; he doesn't have any knowledge for leading. He's just arrogant. And sometimes that's all you need to be a leader