All Quiet On The Western Front: A Character Analysis

At the end Paul realizes that everything flashes before his eyes after all his friends had died,” I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how people are set against one another…” (Remarque, 263). The main character, Paul reaches the point where he understands that he has no knowledge of the meaning of life. This quote gives a better understanding of the factors of the war, death and fear and the role they play for the comrades. We are reminded the short amount of time most soldier survive, in Paul’s company the initial number of soldiers was one hundred eighty,” Second Company—with difficulty a line, a short line trudges off into the morning.

During his time in the front with his comrades, he experienced death on an immense scale. Back home, he had been living in a bubble which was shielding him from the cruelty of the world; all of a sudden that bubble popped. This was all too overwhelming for Paul and he immediately became disillusioned. He realized that the path towards victory was not as exuberant as he had imagined and that he had to be willing to give up his life if necessary.

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.

The book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque gives us a good understanding of what war was like for the people fighting on the front. When reading this book people can get a front hand experience of what it is like being in battle. Remarque wrote this book so well that often times you picture yourself actually with Paul and all his friends. The one thing you specifically get to see is how humanity affects warfare. Humanity affects our decisions in warfare because humans are selfish, have fear, and seek revenge.

In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, Remarque retells the story of World War One from the viewpoint of the German soldier, Paul Baumer. Throughout the novel, Paul experiences the atrocities of this war, but unfortunately the effects of the war were worse than he had imagined. The war took a toll on the life of every single soldier, affecting their futures and families. However, the camaraderie the boys had formed allowed them to survive and ultimately was the only positive outcome of the war. Remarque includes sections throughout the novel that emphasize this deep bond that the soldiers share with one another.

Throughout the ages, wars have wreaked havoc and caused great destruction that lead to the loss of millions of lives. However, wars also have an immensely destructive effect on the individual soldier. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, one is able to see exactly to what extent soldiers suffered during World War 1 as well as the effect that war had on them. In this essay I will explain the effect that war has on young soldiers by referring to the loss of innocence of young soldiers, the disillusionment of the soldiers and the debasement of soldiers to animalistic men.

Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, follows the life of a German Soldier, Paul Baumer, serving in the trenches in France during World War I. This novel is told from Baumer’s perspective and depicts the horrors of living in his shoes during this time. Paul and several other young soldiers volunteered for the war after their instructor in school, Kantorek and other authority figures back home filled their heads with glorious ideas about the war. Very quickly, he discovers the reality- gas attacks, fatal illness, starvation, rat infestations, and bloody trenches. This dehumanizing war affects Paul and the soldiers who fought in it by destroying their physical and emotional well being, changing their views on the meaning of life and death, obliterating their sense of nationalism by betrayal, and

In order to emphasize the degree to which the soldiers in World War I changed emotionally, Paul juxtaposes the innocence of his youth with a primal instinct of desperate survival that forms from the brutality of the war. As time passes, each of the soldiers slowly loses his sense of self, specifically seen when Bäumer and Kropp, a fellow soldier, cannot seem to recognize themselves in a regular life in the future after the war. Kropp then interprets this as a loss of preparedness because of war. Paul seems to agree as he reminisces, “We were eighteen

The author expresses throughout the novel that the war destroys an entire generation’s lives. Paul explains, “[Him and the other young soldiers] had not as yet taken no root. The war swept [them] away. For the older men, it is but an interruption. They are able to think beyond it.[Paul and the other young soldiers], however, have been gripped by it and do not know what the end may be” (20).

Unlike other military men, Paul has the ability to see through the enemy military members’ perspective to the extent that he could see their struggles. He believes that the enemies from Russia are as “kindly as the peasants in Friesland” (Remarque 190). Paul’s analyzes that the eastern side enemy begs and acts just as humane as the peasants in Friesland, Netherlands because both side want to survive and have a good life. Furthermore, Paul connects to the person who he had slain by describing that his “mother is just as anxious as [theirs]”, and they have “the same fear of death” (Remarque 223). Remarque shows this comparison between Paul and the dead man because he wants to show how Paul has the ability to look into his enemy's’ side of the war.

In the book, All Quiet On the Western front, the main character is Paul Baumer, an eighteen-year-old boy. Many of his classmates also enlisted to be in the war, they were around Pauls age. One of the reasons why the war takes such a huge toll on the soldiers is because they are being forced into a state of mind where it is either kill or be killed. They are not children in high school anymore. This relates to the lost generation because it asserts the loss of the innocence in the soldiers.

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.

A character in the book “All quiet on the Western Front.” A teenager aged 18-19 years old who was sent to war as such a young age who wasn 't mentally or physically prepared for war. Throughout the book I have consider Paul Baumer as a definition of humanity. He always put all his friends or his war family when he was alive from simply being compassionate and always putting himself first for

War is a harsh reality that is inflicted upon the unwilling through the “need” of it’s predecessors and those whom wish it. All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about 19 year old Paul and his friends in the “Second Company”. Even though they are just out of school age, they have already seen things that many could not bear to even think about. Eventually, all of his friends die, and even Paul too, dies. Remarque uses diction and syntax as literary devices to express his anti-war theme, or lesson.

When Paul and his comrades attempt to protect themselves from an incoming bombardment by the French, Paul reflects on how the war has come to “[fill] [them] with ferocity, [turn] [them] into thugs, into murderers, […] this wave that multiplies [their] strength with fear and madness and greed of life, seeking and fighting for nothing but deliverance” (Remarque 114). The author utilizes the words “murderers” and “thugs” to emphasize how the soldiers have turned into inhumane, barbaric humans while participating in the war. This callous characterization suggests that Paul acts instinctively without considering his actions and the guilt that follows. The fact that Paul chooses to describe himself with such a demoralized character demonstrates how he has abandoned his morality into becoming a merciless soldier who feels no remorse for his brutal actions. In addition, Paul’s determined tone of “fighting for nothing but deliverance” indicates that he no longer has an interest in the lives of others, but only for his own survival.