ipl-logo

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

1269 Words6 Pages

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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

Show More
Related
1218 Words | 5 Pages

The more fighting there is the worse Paul and the men’s moral become. Paul can not see an end to the war and even if it were to end, he doesn’t believe that he can ever return back to normal. He experiences this when he first visits home during the war. “A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I can not find my way back, I am shut out though I entreat earnestly and put forth all my strength.”

Read More
670 Words | 3 Pages

Because of this Paul starts believing he will have to start doing things that may cost him his life in the war and may cost his mentality. “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 insanity. Paul also experiences insanity by seeing so many of his comrades dying. “Besides us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror.

Read More
632 Words | 3 Pages

(pg 82). This evidence infers that during an emergency Paul was brave and jumped in to help others. He became a leader and faced down his fear, which made his self-confidence

Read More
1181 Words | 5 Pages

After the traumatic experiences he suffered through, Paul made mental growth in the human aspect. He figured out that “there are still human faces” even in his enemies. Further in this realization he sympathizes with the rest of the wounded soldiers stuck in similar hospitals all over the enemy lines. This identification attaches Paul to the enemy, positively affecting his mental condition. He recognizes that he is not as drastically different as he thought which ultimately changes his outlook on the war.

Read More
1191 Words | 5 Pages

Paul has learned a whole new level of survival. He's taught himself to survival intense shelling, and survive in a dirty and unequipped trench. All the men in his trench are his new family. At the end of the book Paul explains how death doesn't take him by surprise anymore. When Kropp and Paul both become injured severely, Paul gets let out early.

Read More
267 Words | 2 Pages

Also, O’Brien uses similarities between flashbacks and Paul’s fantasy world to convey that Paul attempts to assemble a tale. For instance, Paul creates the character Sarkin based off of a little girl he meets in a village. When Paul first meets Sarkin, she is described as wearing “gold hoops through her ears” (51). It cannot be a coincidence that Paul has a flashback of “[a] little girl with gold hoops in her ears” (262). Paul adds Sarkin into the story because he yearns to get his mind off of the war around him, so he develops a love interest in his story.

Read More
1245 Words | 5 Pages

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

Read More
1410 Words | 6 Pages

Paul reaches this stage when he returns to the front after staying at the hospital due to a leg injury. In a moment of deep thought, Paul ponders, “...life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death;--It has transformed us into unthinking animals to give us the weapon of instinct...“ (Remarque 273-274). The soldiers may be courageous for their spontaneous acts but are thoughtless, controlled creatures. In this case, it is a negative as they are sacrificing their wits to

Read More
166 Words | 1 Pages

Edward Bloor reveals the theme of heroism by the story stating Paul saving a bunch of students from a sinkhole. This states that the theme must be about heroism because Paul saves all those people and he did it even though he was scared. From the text on page 81 it states “I didn’t even think about it” that proves that Paul is a real hero and he could do it even though he was probably scared to do it he still jumped in to save the lives of others. The bonus meant that “the heavens have opened up to me” and the quote meant that since the school that had his IEP was destroyed he might have to transfer or stay with the same school but then because the school was destroyed the new school he goes to doesn’t have his IEP so since he doesn’t have

Read More
665 Words | 3 Pages

Erich Maria Remarque was a man who had lived through the terrors of war, serving since he was eighteen. His first-hand experience shines through the text in his famous war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, which tells the life of young Paul Bäumer as he serves during World War 1. The book was, and still is, praised to be universal. The blatant show of brutality, and the characters’ questioning of politics and their own self often reaches into the hearts of the readers, regardless of who or where they are. Brutality and images of war are abundant in this book, giving the story a feeling of reality.

Read More
1106 Words | 5 Pages

The concept of “The Hero’s Journey” plays a major role in nearly every piece of fiction humanity has created since its inception, from epic poems to blockbuster movies. In many ways, works of fiction and some pieces of nonfiction could not exist and would not make sense without the concept of a Hero’s Journey; it allows the reader to comprehend and follow the progression of characters over the course of the story. While Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road may not display most of the archetypal qualities found in classic Hero’s Journeys such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, it most clearly exemplifies the qualities of a Hero’s Journey through the Boy’s character in relation to the mentor, tests and enemies, and the

Read More
1222 Words | 5 Pages

I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. I ought never to have come on leave. " Paul cannot connect with his mother, father, or any of his personal possessions because he realizes that he is not the same person. He has to live in fear of the dangers of war, not of the superficial worries of his past. He has formed a new family, and eventually as all his friends die, he becomes satisfied with his own impending death because he knows that although his entire time has been filled with struggles, he will no longer have to fight and will be at peace.

Read More
933 Words | 4 Pages

In addition, Paul was injured in the book and goes home and stays with her family while he recovers. He is no longer able to relate to his family, since it is very difficult to think and have emotions and at the same time with much death all around him in the war. There is much talk of how he and his friends do not think about deep things, but just think about eating and silly things. His father and people over all his people want me to tell them stories of war and hate Paul because their experiences are horrible. Paul has just returned to the fight and basically everyone in the book is wounded and dies.

Read More
1091 Words | 5 Pages

Moreover, commonly, soldiers are exhilarated to finally go home after long periods of time at the front, and the men dread when they have to return to battle. However, in Paul’s case, he desires to return to the front, rather than staying in his home town and seeing his mother in pain, he yearns to feel numb again. Therefore, Paul is in “agony” because before going on leave, he was hopeless and had no will to live, thus making him a better soldier. Although, after visiting his mother and sister, he has rediscovered a reason to survive, making it harder to go back. Moreover, the word, “comfortless,” illustrates how Paul feels isolated even at home, he feels little comfort where he grew up.

Read More
804 Words | 4 Pages

The war novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque depicts one protagonist, Paul, as he undergoes a psychological transformation. Paul plays a role as a soldier fighting in World War I. His experiences during the war are not episodes the average person would simply experience. Alternatively, his experiences allow him to develop into a more sophisticated individual. Remarque illustrates these metamorphic experiences to expose his theme of the loss of not only people’s lives but also innocence and tranquility that occurs in war.

Read More

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

Related Topics

Open Document