All Quiet on the Western Front demonstrates how expendable soldiers are during war by using a pair of boots that are passed on soldier to soldier as the owner who wears the boots dies. The boots are first discovered by Kemmerich, one of Paul’s friends, who finds them on a fallen paratrooper. Inheriting them as his own, Kemmerich wears them as it is better to fight with boots that prevent your feet from tiring as quickly and from the cold. He feels that these boots will make fighting more tolerable and becomes very comfortable with them.
In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front soldiers admit themselves in the war and struggle more than just staying alive. Oftentimes their lives as regular humans are threatened. Remarques purpose in writing this novel was to show how the war dehumanizes the soldiers,how comradity is created during war, and how their life after war is changed. One of the most common motifs throughout the novel is how soldiers in the war are dehumanized and turned into killing machines. In an article written by Common Dreams a story is shared about a veteran who simply became dehumanized.
Erich Remarque, author of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, presents a true story of a soldier throughout World War I. At the young age of 19, Paul Bäumer voluntarily enters the draft to fight for his home country, Germany. Throughout the war, Paul disconnects his mind from his feelings, keeping his emotions away from the bitter reality he is experiencing. This helps him survive mentally throughout the course of the war. The death of Paul 's friend Kemmerich forces him to cover his grief, “My limbs move supplely, I feel my joints strong, I breathe the air deeply. The night lives, I live.”
When soldiers with PTSD come back from war they might receive different treatment from others, they might be treated like a feral dog perhaps. This might be because they act different, this might include hyper-vigilance, lots of anxiety, stress, nervousness, and lots of hesitation with talking to new people. Several people talk about their past experiences and how it affects them today. “Any incopentance Bear encounters in civilian life arouses the same feelings of fear, rage, and grief.” (Shay, para. 25).
Disconnect from society War has shown to affect plenty of veterans in many different ways. Some mental effects that are commonly seen amongst soldiers are PTSD, anxiety, and even self-harm. Many of the soldiers that survived WWI experienced these effects. A very common effect that many WWI veterans experienced was feeling disconnected from society once they had returned home from war. In All Quiet on the Western Front Paul, the main character, didn’t have any shortage of this psychological effect.
In Soldier from the War Returning, Thomas Childers writes that “a curious silence lingers over what for many was the last great battle of the war.” This final battle was the soldier’s return home. After World War II, veterans came back to the United States and struggled with stigmatized mental illnesses as well as financial and social issues. During the war, many soldiers struggled with mental health issues that persisted after they came home.
PTSD affects more than 3 million people a year and people can either forget about what happened to them that caused them PTSD or people can get serious symptoms. PTSD is when someone experiences or witnesses a horrifying accident that they can’t forget. PTSD is caused by physical and emotional feelings or thoughts. Some effects of PTSD can negatively affect your physical and mental health. All Quiet on the Western Front is a book that can relate to people nowadays that have PTSD by talking about a soldier named Paul that goes through terrifying experiences in World War 1.
The book All Quiet on the Western Front takes place during World War I. The author, Erich Maria Remarque, describes how dehumanizing war can be for soldiers who give their life to serve their country and protect it. Remarque specifically describes the hardships of a German soldier Paul during the war. Through Remarque’s story we learn that war affects relationships, thought processes, natural instincts and many more functions of a soldier. We learn over the course of this book that all soldiers change through war.
The First World War was a lengthy and brutal affair that claimed the lives of over 17 million individuals. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, its effects were equally as ferocious on the intellectual front, where it marked a turning point in the clash of European intellectual values. Philosophers such as Nietzsche had already challenged established institutions of Positivistic thinking toward knowledge and progress; however, his movement lacked widespread support. It was the disaster of WWI that accelerated their movement by inspiring culture-wide undermining of prior intellectual beliefs through newfound uncertainty: authors such as Erich Remarque and Vera Brittain drew upon sudden doubt underscored by the war to completely reverse prior thinking by breaking down pre-war notions of intellectual
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through. In the novel “All Quiet on the Western Front" is the description by Erich Maria Remarque of the graphic violence and gore and the psychological pain that the average soldier endured on the western front.
The horrors of war can be seen throughout most of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Although this novel takes place during World War I, horrors of war have been around since the beginning of war, and can still be seen here today. Almost all soldiers, regardless of which war they’re in, end up losing themselves. This is due to the experiences these soldiers have gone through and the horrors of war that they have seen or been a part of. War is a gruesome part of human history, and the different horrors often hidden within can tear the soldiers apart, both mentally and physically.
The novel focuses on coping with the death and horror of war. It also speaks volumes about the true nature of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the never-ending struggle of dealing with it. In the
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in The Things They Carried During the turbulent times of the Vietnam War, thousands of young men entered the warzone and came face-to-face with unimaginable scenes of death, destruction, and turmoil. While some perished in the dense Asian jungles, others returned to American soil and were forced to confront their lingering combat trauma. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provides distinct instances of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and reveals the psychological trauma felt by soldiers in the Vietnam War. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD for short, is the most common mental illness affecting soldiers both on and off the battlefield.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that follows the experience of a traumatic event. Of the 2.7 million American veterans that served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, at least 20% were diagnosed with PTSD (Veterans Statistics). PTSD affects everyone differently but the most common symptoms of PTSD include: reliving the event, increased anxiety, and avoiding any reminders of the trauma (Robinson,Segal, Smith). These symptoms negatively affect their life
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.
