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Summary Of All Quiet On The Western Front

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All Quiet on the Western Front is a book about World War I narrated by Paul, a German soldier fighting on the front lines. All Quiet on the Western Front has many different themes, such as the horrors of the war and dehumanization. In the epigraph of the novel, it is said that the book will “try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” The book claims that war is a force that not only wounds and maims, but also crushes character. Paul directly investigates why countries go to war, later facing issues of existence and mortality. The book is set among soldiers fighting on the front line. One of the main focuses is the crippling effect the war has on soldiers. The brutality …show more content…

In chapter 9 he says, “I thought of your of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late…you are poor devils like us, your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?” (Page 223) Paul realizes that the soldier that he has killed is no different than him. The war has dehumanized Paul to the point that he didn’t think twice about killing the soldier, until the soldier was dead. Soldiers in the war fight for their own survival rather than for the glory of their nation- they kill or will be killed. On the front lines, Paul learns to disconnect his mind from his feelings, suppressing his emotions in order to stay sane and survive. Because of this, Paul cannot express his feelings sufficiently and doesn’t feel comfortable at home with his family because they don’t understand what he has gone through in the war. Paul can’t voice his opinions about the war or talk about his experiences; the war has changed him. However, Paul is able to not become as detached from his feelings as other soldiers and regains his humanity several times in the book. All Quiet on the Western Front shows the extent to which Paul has been dehumanized, saying: “Parting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army.” (Page 269) Paul could not properly mourn his friend Kropp because he was “used to” that sort of thing-showing just how far from humanity Paul

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Esteban Gonzalez Professor Voth Humanities Oct 7, 2014 All Quiet on the Western Front Paper This story wastes no time getting into the hardships and devastation that war has on a young soul. Our protagonist Paul, a young man who has voluntarily joined the war out of amongst many of his friends and classmates have undergone 10 weeks of mentally and physically exhausting both in training and on the front lines.

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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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All Quiet on the Western Front taught me many new lessons about the war. The book had showed everything from good to bad. I found the book very interesting and a good resource to learn more about the war. Paul had been the longest soldier who had fought out of his group. Paul had overcome many challenges and had experienced many different events.

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“breeding, education are changing…hardly recognizable any longer”(121)this shows how the norm for paul has become the war. Paul has been in the war for so long that when he returns home he feels out of place and later goes on to talk about he his new home is the front line. Towards the end of the book paul goes into great detail about how the war has drastically changed them all and that for those who have survived the war things will never be the same “few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit and most will be bewildered”(131). This depicts how paul and his generation will never fully recover from the war things will never be the same few will be able start over but most were scared and lost at war. Paul and his generation are considered the lost generation because they will never be able to fully recover from the war they will forever live in the war mentality because of PTSD or other mental health

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He is initially excited to leave and go home but as soon as he gets to the train station he becomes sad. Suddenly I become filled with consuming inpatient to be gone” (Remarque,154). Even in a time where he should be filled with excitement to go home he immediately misses his comrades. In a heated battle with the enemy country one of Paul’s closest comrad, Kemmerich, is shot in the leg and is heavily bleeding. Once the battle is over with the soldiers surround Kemmerich.

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All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque is a story of a young man named Paul Bäumer who volunteers to be a soldier in the German army during World War One. Being at a very young age Bäumer, and three of his friends whom also enlisted to the German army from the same school he attended, felt proud when enlisting “we were a class of twenty young men, many of whom proudly shaved for the first time before going to the barracks” (AQOTWF p.21). Very soon, however, Bäumer and the young men he enlisted with begin to feel indifferent and embittered of being in the army “At first astonished, then embittered, and finally indifferent.” (AQOTWF p.21/22). Joining the army for Bäumer changed the way he felt about everything he knew in the past, and the way he thought of the people who stayed back home.

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In this particular occurrence, Paul does not identify the enemy he attacks. He merely mentions his enemy’s face without specificity. By describing the man only as “a wounded machine-gunner,” Paul represents the lack of humanity created when soldiers view the enemy as nothing more than a pawn in war. Paul fails to distinguish his enemies making his attack much more vicious. The more monstrous the attacks, the more effect these blood bath’s have on the soldier's' mental conditions.

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Also, Paul pulled out his dagger to protect himself from any soldiers trying to attack him. Paul killing a man shows that the brutality of war has affected him and his humanity. Another example of when Paul loses his humanity is when he says he only knows about death and despair. “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how people are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.

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All Quiet on The Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel composed after World War One to convey the experiences of German soldiers during this horrific time of fighting. He brought to light many important issues that occur during wars. In this book, three horrors of war that had the largest impact were the lack of sanitation in the trenches, the loss of comrades, and the shock that came from unexpected and ongoing shelling. The lack of sanitation in the trenches caused many diseases, infections, and terrible memories to me made.

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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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The ruthless killing brings a toll on the people who will remember that the enemies are men just like them, as Paul does when he instantly regrets his actions, saying that he would not kill him if he could redo the situation. Thus Paul sees value in being a coward, as he thinks it would be more courageous not to kill him than to go by the standards he learns. The German soldiers train as if they were animals acting upon their instincts to do so, which bears similarity to the human nature of war. Paul is at the stage where he lacks any hope for the war and does not see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is in the winter and at the time when Paul is so accustomed to the war that it is just another day for him.

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After Paul’s brutal experience of warfare and countering his life in ignorance, he would agree to ignorance is bliss with what he is doing is joyful to him. He can hurt anyone and have no conscious. Since Paul has many responsibilities due to warfare, his attitude and personality changed him as a person. It destroyed him psychology. Paul was ignorant enough not to realize what's going on around them.

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Before the war Paul was innocent. He knew none of war and was just a kid who had never experienced anything bad. War can effect one in a way that can never be changed. Due to how they used to be the war has changed them so much that they will never be friendly, well-adjusted children again. Not just war has created major effects on the way people live it also somewhat belongs to the person themselves.

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War carries important morals that heighten the perspective of men and women on their nation, but it also entails many acts and experiences that leave lasting effects on their emotional and physical state. Throughout the following texts, Paul Baumer, the dead soldiers, and Kiowa’s comrades all sustain losses that compel them to persevere and fight harder. All Quiet on the Western Front, Poetry of the Lost Generation, and an excerpt from In the Field all connect to the recurring theme, horrors of war, that soldiers face everyday on the front line through the continuous battle. War involves gruesome battles, many of which lead to death, but these events forever affect the soldier’s mind and body. In All Quiet on the Western Front, men experience horrific sights, or horrors of war, through the depiction of the terrain, death, and the

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After experiencing the horrors of World War I, Paul believes he is “nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end” (Remarque 185). Paul is in fact guilty for his involvement in the violence of the war. He realizes this fact and becomes dispirited because he bemoans allowing himself to get involved in such cruelty. Despite the fact that Paul experiences adverse emotions because of it, he learns from his past blemishes. Even though he can never really rescind his previous actions, he still uses them as a guide towards refraining from repeating the same missteps.

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