Chapter 9: After returning from his leave, Paul sees that his friends are still alive. Relieved that they are still alive, he shares his food with them. His friends felt that Paul was lucky because he was away from the war to visit his family. His friends explain that while he was gone, they heard that they are all going to Russia. He also founds out from his friends that they are going to get inspected by the Kaiser before they go to Russia. Paul finds out that the Kaiser isn’t what he thought he would be, and is disappointed. Feeling like he needs to catch up with his friends and the war, he volunteers to help find and gather information about the enemy. However, when trying to go back, an attack started to happen, and he decided to hide …show more content…
Paul explains that his friend Haie is dead, but feels like he and his rest of his friends are lucky to be alive today. He also explains that he is also lucky because he doesn’t need to fight in the war. Paul decides to go to patrol with Kat, and explains, “in very short time, we have collected a dozen eggs and two pounds of fairly fresh butter.” (Remarque 233) Also, when on patrol, they hunted down two pigs, which they had slaughtered later on and eat them for 4 hours. During the 8 days of patrolling, they gathered up supplies before leaving, such as two armchairs, a four-poster bed, a cat, and a cage. They went to another village and helps the villagers evacuate. . However during the evacuation, Kropp breaks his leg, and he knows that he will be getting his leg amputated. This reminds Paul of Kemmerich and feels like Kropp will have the same fate. Paul also finds out that he had wounded his arm and goes to the hospital with Kropp. Being injured, Paul and Kropp were being taking care of by the sergeant-major. They both make it to the hospital. The next moment, they find themselves with the hospital inspector. However somebody throws a bottle at the inspector during the inspection. The inspector asks who had thrown the bottle. Josef Hamacher explains that it was him, when it wasn’t him. Hamacher explains later that he was protecting everyone, because everyone knows …show more content…
He explains, “war is the cause of death like cancer and tuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery.” (Remarque 271) He explains that since it is the wintertime, there are more deaths because of the coldness and lack of heat. Paul starts to reflect on how everyone in the army is near death. He explains how short their life is during the war, how gloomy they are in the war, and their own survival throughout the war. He starts to reflect on different moments throughout the night. The next day, Paul explains about Detering, and what happened to him. Detering tried to run away from war and wanted to go back home because he couldn’t take it anymore. However when running away, he was caught by the authorities and was put on trial. Paul explains that the authority doesn’t know about Detering homesickness, and there is no other choice of what to do about Detering. They never heard about Detering afterwards. After explaining what happened to Detering, he explains about Müller, who was shot during one of the battles. Paul explains Müller gave everything he had before his death, including the boots that Kemmerich gave Paul to give to Müller. Paul explains that he would give the boot to Tjaden when his time is up. Paul explains that the war had worsen, explaining that there are many different things that could happen to the German soldiers such as “Shell, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks – shattering corroding, death. Dysentery,
Like the concept of survival of the fittest, it is essential for the soldiers to have an animal instinct to survive on the battlefield. Many moments are shown in which the soldiers become two faced, changing from good-mannered and soft soldier to animal - like characteristics. Paul informs us that they only way to survive in battle, is to block away all your emotions, if not, it would drive you insane. Another aspect as to the book’s anti-war sentiment, is how Remarque describes the consequences of war, the loss of the young life. Paul's generation was known as the "Iron Youth", which was a group of young boys who enlisted and fought in the war as a way of showing gratitude for their country, Germany, but his age group is lost because
At this time, Paul and his friends still saw war as a heroic, and something of which to be proud, so they were naturally willing and enthusiastic to server their fatherland. They soon became aware, however, of the hardships they would have to face through the basic training, and soon after they faced their
“There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” (C.S. Lewis) In Enrich Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, a story is told through the eyes of a young soldier named Paul Baumer.
Shortly after, Paul is back marching again on an enemy road. In this situation, Paul is again using his imagination. This is how O’Brien tells of Paul’s way of distracting himself, “He counted his steps, concentrating on the numbers, pretending that the steps were dollar bills and that each step through the night made him richer and richer so that soon he would become a wealthy man, and he kept counting and considered the ways he might spend the money after the war and what he would do” (O’Brien
When Paul returns home in chapter 7 of All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, things appear different than when he left them. Although the surroundings are familiar, Paul himself has changed, and this change has affected his manner of viewing the world around him. He also finds that he can no longer fit in or connect with the world and people around him because of how alien they feel to him. Paul’s change in character has changed the way he views the world because he no longer feels like he fits in with the people at home, he feels uncomfortable with his surroundings wherever he goes, and he can no longer connect to the world around him, the world he grew up in and once knew. His discomfort and disconnection from everything is outrightly stated by Paul himself
Paul is in the middle of a war, his mother is dying, his friends are dying, death surrounds him, and he has firsthand killed a man to protect himself and his hiding place. Mentally, he has experienced more stress and trauma than most of the people his age. His transition from reckless teenage years
A French soldier jumps into the hole too and so Paul stabs him. Paul feels guilt for this as he realizes that the French man is just as much of a victim of war as he is. It makes matters worse that the man had a family at home. In the next battle, Paul and a peer called Kropp are injured and taken to the hospital.
When soldiers enlist in the war, they know they might have to kill people. Even though the soldiers are supposed to kill them, Paul realized he would have to live with it for the rest of his life. This also made his perception change on how he saw the Russians. On his leave, he went up to the fence where the Russians were and thought about how, “their life is obscure and guiltless; -if I could know more of them, what their names are, how they live, what they are waiting for, what their burdens are, then my emotions would have an object and might become sympathy” (Remarque 193). By knowing more of their lives, he would see them as more human.
Paul saved his family and friends because he was apart of the more favorable group and he could bribe the guards to protect them like when Paul went to the hotel safe to get money for the guards (Hotel Rwanda) , Eli didn’t have that choice because he was a Jew during the holocaust in Germany and the Nazi soldiers made his sister and mother separate from Him and his father, the Nazi soldiers screamed “men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wisel 27) . Being a Jew was extremely difficult because all of the Jews in germany during the holocaust were sent to concentration camps where they either had to work or they were killed in gas chambers, shot, or even hung, someon told Eli something he would never forget and that was "'Do you see that chimney over there? See it?
Paul is afraid it will continue to be glorified when it is actually terrible. There is a limited amount of food, the rations are too small. His memories and future will continue to be hindered by the war.
Kemmerich dies right next to paul and that’s when Pauls feeling are released into the book.(32) Paul is the figure for all of the “ lost generation” and by that he shows us that this men of world war one never got to see much of the world after turning the drafting age. In the book Paul
Kat disagrees with the fact the officers, and the soldiers are paid differently, and claims the war would end if they were. Kropp says that there shouldn't be wars, and that the nation's leaders should fight with clubs. During a night, the men go on a tough mission to go lay Barbed wire on the front, and they are being surrounded by artillery blast so they go hide in a graveyard but, the shelling is killing soldiers, and bringing dead soldiers out of the ground. Due to incidents like this, Paul had finally realized that he has to trust his instincts, and to find his inner
Every generation has a name, it is a brand that many wear with honor as they speak of their shared life experiences. The Lost Generation is a generation that, like its name, is forgotten. A name first created by Ernest Hemingway, he describes the Lost Generation as the boys that returned from World War 1 coming back haunted and hollow from the violence from the war. They were no longer children that could no longer fit safely within society.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a riveting novel about World War 1, told through the eyes of a German soldier, Paul. This novel is different than other war stories because it forces you to experience the war from a point of view other than a United States Soldier. The author, Erich Maria Remarque, beautifully balances the hardships, horrors and loss of innocence that war brings to young men, with scenes of serenity, as soldiers fight to save their country. In chapter one Remarque writes, “Yesterday we were relieved, and our bellies were full of beef and beans.
He started crying, and he rolled on the ground, as though the knives were on the outside of him instead of on the inside of him… That’s me in there with all those knives” (139). Paul was already considered to be senseless for torturing an animal but what demonstrates his heartless personality the most is that he takes pride in his tortues. The gruesome imagery used by Paul can be extended to symbolize how war demoralizes humans. This is shown through many occasions in the novel as soldiers of war start objectifying women, stealing syrup from the factory and most terrifying, torturing other human beings, as shown through the firebombing of Dresden.