What Are The Effects Of War In All Quiet On The Western Front

There are not many ways to potentially ruin a man, but war is most certainly one of them. All Quiet on the Western Front is a post-World War I novel written by Erich Maria Remarque that explores the reality of war and its effects on the men. In the trenches, the men go through bombardment after bombardment, being stuck for days on end, and watching fellow comrades die, so they are tormented for the rest of their life. When they physically leave the battlefield, their experiences have alienated them from everything they used to know, and completely altered their personality, and their views of life, so they struggle to return to the way their relationships were before the war. Many go into war as boys, without a family, a goal, a job, or anything

Some spend months in the front, being bombed, shot at, and subjected to many very stressful events, causing so much psychological damage that they are tortured for the rest of their life. One event in the book shows a bombardment that lasts several days. After a while, the newer recruits start to show signs of collapse. They are overwhelmed, more scared than they have ever been, and are beginning to crumble. Some of the men feel as if they are suffocating, and would do anything to get out of the trap they are in. Their claustrophobia and stress override their logic, and they begin to make dashes for the door. Paul and Kat do their best to stop them, but one manages to escape and when a shell goes off very close to him, he is instantaneously killed. Another bangs his head against the wall. (Remarque 110) Those that are thinking clearly know that as soon as they leave the safety of the bomb shelter they will die, but the stress is driving them crazy and they only care to leave where they are. The stress these men are under temporarily drives them from reason, but permanently leaves them with shell shock. They are permanently

Many boys went to war without anything to return to, a job, a family, or a goal. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that about half of veterans were not in the noninstitutional labor force in 2016 while that number was down to a third in the rest of the population. (Bureau of Labor Statistics) This shows that many men leave the military and for various reasons are unable to form to civilian life. They try to find a job that they are fit for, but don’t understand society and no longer fit into the culture of the world they left. They realize that they must relearn how to live if they are to jibe with the world and can’t always climb that mountain without support. While sharing post-war plans, those with a family and a home-life decide that if the war ends they will go back home and continue supporting their family and growing crops. The younger boys make immediate plans but realize that they have nothing to return to and nothing to plan for when Kropp verbalizes that “the war has ruined us for everything.” (Remarque 87) They realize that once they go home they will have to try to integrate into the society they left. They find it sickening and are unable to think of a thing they would fit. They had not yet experienced the world, and war has made them realize the uselessness of everything they had been taught them up to that point; all they know is war, and war is all they need to