All Quiet on the Western Front 2
All Quiet On the Western FrontAll Quiet?
World War I was one of the most brutal wars ever, more than 37 million were killed or wounded and it cost an estimated 38 billion dollars, but its wrath only began with the physical damage it caused. For the soldiers that survived the fighting, the true battle had just begun. War negatively effects the individual not only in the physical sense but also in the psychological sense. Erich Maria Remarque�s All Quiet On the Western Front accurately portrays these negative effects on the individual during war. This novel is told through the first person protagonist of Paul B�umer, a nineteen-year-old German soldier of his experiences during World War I. Remarque makes a powerful disclaimer at the beginning of the book stating. �This book is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.� The war stripped these men were of everything they had and they couldn�t fit in with the post-war world. This novel shows how a war breaks down a soldier�s mind, it destroys their past, future, morals, and most of all their innocence. All Quiet on the Western Front precisely illustrates the destruction of the life of a soldier during war.
War rapes the individual of all their past knowledge that is not relevant to the situation at hand. All B�umer ever knew before the war, was school. As naive teenagers, B�umer and his friends dreamed of war, as a heroic deed they never thought it could be such a miserable wasteland of broken and battered men. Many men dreamed of going home, but when they got there everything was different to them. Paul realizes that his whole life, spent on school, was a waste.
War had changed everything for them. They dreamed of going back to the way things were, and forgetting the war. Their schoolbook knowledge was useless in the war, it couldn�t help them survive, and more practical ideas replaced it.
We remember mighty little of all that rubbish. Anyway, it has never been the slightest use to us. At school nobody ever taught us how to light a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be made with wet wood-nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the belly because there it doesn’t get jammed, as it does in the ribs.
Remarque uses irony in this passage; it is hard to believe that ten weeks of boot camp can be more valuable than ten years of school. The men feel that they are different now. They have long forgotten math, German and history they no longer care. When Paul goes home on short leave, he recognizes his synthesis into a new man and although he desperately wants to return to his old ways, he cannot change back.
War is a paradox from which one cannot escape, when a soldier is at war his mind is on home, but when he is home, his mind is on war. War detaches an individual from society; they change into a different breed. The war remolds them into something far greater; something fit only for war, to be disposed of afterwards. Only, they can never fit back in the mold from which they were born.
When I see them here, in their rooms, in their offices, about their occupations, I feel an irresistible attraction in it, I would like to be here too and forget the war; but also it repels me, it is so narrow, how can that fill a man’s life, he ought to mash it to bits; how can they do it…They are different men here, men I cannot properly understand, whom I envy and despise. (169)
Once they have experienced war, they wonder how others could be so naive and shallow. The have permanent weights on their backs, the memories of war never go away. Paul knows all of his pre-war hopes and dreams are dead, the war broke and defeated him.
A person�s physical health is as equally important as their mental health. During war a persons mental health is broken down to make them a more efficient soldier. Paul was not only broken down but the war forces him to mature. �We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits, and feel ourselves stone-aged veterans�(35). Referring to the new recruits Paul�s friend Albert Kropp asks, �Seen the infants?� (35). This is ironic because B�umer and Kropp are barely older than most of the recruits and younger than a few. They still treat them with inferiority because life on the front is not something than can be learned in training. The soldier�s experiences with death and destruction make them different and incompatible with the world outside the war.
The most significant form of destruction of a soldier�s life is the loss of innocence. While on short leave Paul attempts to find solace in his childhood bedroom. There he saw his old and beaten schoolbooks; he begged them to take him back to his childhood, although he is not much older than when he left, he matured beyond his years. They no longer bring him the same joy or excitement as they had before.
I stand there dumb. As before a judge.
Dejected.
Words, Words, Words-they do not reach me.
Slowly I place the books back in the shelves.
Nevermore.
Quietly, I go out of the room. (173)
He could not count on his books to bring him back. Nothing could bring him back from the fiery hell known as the front and it�s grasp on his life. The wrath of the war crushed all of his future hopes and dreams. War eclipsed his dreams of fun and adventure. Paul B�umer had seen more death and destruction at his youthful age than most men had in a lifetime. Remarque personifies B�umer�s room, B�umer expects his room to �speak� to him and tell him that everything is going to be all right, that he can forget the was forever and go back to his pre-war life. Remarque also symbolizes B�umer�s innocence with his schoolbooks, he left his innocence in the books when he left for duty and now he can�t find it, it�s lost forever. As result of the war, Paul lost what most consider the best part of their life, childhood.
War distorts a soldier�s moral and ethics, further burying their innocence. Their morals change to survive during war. Their only rules to live by are to stay alive and to kill the enemy. In the novel, B�umer and his friends meet with some French prostitutes, they bring food in exchange for sex. Before the war he would have never done this, but now he needed it. This was probably the only time in the whole novel that his mind was free of thoughts of war. �I want it all to fall from, war and terror and grossness, in order to awaken young and happy� perhaps a miracle may happen��(150). B�umer needed someone to love and comfort him that wouldn�t ask questions.
War is like a game that never ends, even when the fighting is over all of it�s participants, no matter the side they play for, are linked by the childhood that they brought to the fronts; and quickly lost there forever. War is a game that nobody wins, all of it�s participants are losers. War strips the individual of all his unique thoughts and ideas. The mentality of a soldier is fit only for war and when the war is over the soldier is not compatible with the society in which they were raised. War Destroys everything thing a person ever knew and everything they ever wanted. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front Paul B�umer is raped of all his intelligence and uniqueness, and reduced to a man whose only grips on reality are his friends. Remarque said it best ��It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.�