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The Effects Of Innocence In All Quiet On The Western Front

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In our life, there is a moment when we lose our innocence. We stopped going out to play with our friends, we no longer believed in the Tooth Fairy and in Santa Claus. There are multifarious ways we lost our innocence, but the one experience that genuinely ruins your innocence is war. In the novel “ All Quiet on the Western Front”, by Erich Maria Remarque, is by a soldier’s point of view, Paul Baumer’s, talking about a group of teens who were recruited to fight in the World War I. The novel depicts how their innocent minds were turned around by all the experiences they were subjected to. Paul Baumer learns that being exposed to the horrors of the war makes you lose your innocence over time, as he sees how each of his classmates are killed or how they kill people. I believe the novel shows excellent examples of loss of innocence and that it is the main theme, I will support this by using examples from the novel and other outside sources. I will also demonstrate different examples of how innocence can be lost within seconds of seeing some kind of violence. The killing of a man is a big factor in the loss of innocence in Paul Baumer's mind. One specific example is when Paul first kills someone, “ This is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing...But every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with …show more content…

"I am very quiet, Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear..." (page 295), this quote shows that Paul Baumer had his innocence taken away when he saw his friends getting killed and when he killed. He has no more fear, he already lost it so he is used to the war. Paul Baumer is no longer an artistic and innocent kid, he is now someone without hope and just wishes to get

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