The Hero's Journey In All Quiet On The Western Front

A hero’s journey is not necessarily an explosion filled, action packed, kung fu filled story that has a happy ending. It is “the pattern of life, growth and experience,” (The Hero’s Journey). Paul Baümer, young german soldier, goes on true hero’s journey of his own even though he lacks encaptivating superpowers, stunning physical features, an attractive damsel in distress, and a super villain to fight. Paul Baümer, the protagonist of All Quiet on the Western Front, goes on his own hero’s journey by incorporating the same steps of a traditional hero’s journey, though divaracates slightly from the traditional hero’s journey when Paul actions contradict that of a hero.

In striking resemblance to the traditional hero’s journey, Paul experiences

Paul experiences the call when he is beckoned to fight or restore glory to his country. Paul encounters and accepts this call when “Kantorek gave [Paul’s class] long lectures until the whole of [his] class went, under his shepherding, to the district command and volunteered” (Remarque 11). Kantorek also serves as a metaphor for Paul’s country, begging him and his peers to “save and restore honor” to their country (The Hero’s Journey). Another similarity between the Paul’s journey and the traditional hero’s journey is seen in the crossing of the threshold. Paul crosses the threshold of his journey and enters the front lines of the war. No longer is Paul where he can only hear “the front as a very distant thunder,” rather he crosses the threshold into the front lines where “the shelling can be heard distinctly” (Remarque 9, 53). Paul crosses the threshold from a place where he “feels secure,” to the unknown harrows of the front lines, where, like with a standard hero, a “world full of dangers and challenges awaits” him (The Hero’s Journey). Although Paul acts like a hero in more than one way, his actions also

Paul’s journey parallels the traditional hero’s journey in this stage because like a traditional hero, as Paul “goes deeper into the unknown, he puts himself more and more at risk, emotionally and physically” (The Hero’s Journey). Paul begins his journey describing time in the war as containing “wonderfully care-free hours” (Remarque 9). Hehen experiences life threatening bombardments, the deaths of his comrades, an uncomfortable civilized life when he visits home, and he encounters the enemy up close; at the latter end of these challenges, Paul explains that “the hours are torture” (Remarque 196). Evidently, Paul shows extreme physical and emotional risk as he furthers his journey. In contrast to their resemblance of one another, these journeys once again diverge in their difference through Paul’s atypical feelings for the purpose of his journey. Most heros are passionate about their purpose and mission as they progress through their journey, but Paul condemns his role in his own journey. Paul’s purpose in the war is to kill the enemy soldiers, yet when Paul challenges himself and encounters these men up close, he questions his own reasoning: “[After all,] any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a