Front Dialectical Journal

Things are horrendous throughout the war, but the real effect of it happens outside of the war. Things such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and also the loss of very close friends. Near the end of the book, Paul is the last survivor of his original classmates who enlisted. “Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope” (Remarque 294) This captures the feelings Paul has towards the war.

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 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.

Throughout the story Paul shows that he cares about his comrades by protecting them from the dangers of war, and he also displays that he will guide them in war. Paul uses his skills of intelligence to guide his team in the trenches and at the front, and he passes on his knowledge and tricks of war to the new recruits. Not many soldiers have all of these qualities, which makes Paul stand out more than his comrades. Even today some men don't express the passion and leadership Paul shows in All Quiet on the Western Front, which brings up the fact that the war needs more men like Paul. To sum up, Paul is an honest and true man who will always be there for his comrades when needed, and he is a man the troops are proud to say is a patriotic

Moreover, commonly, soldiers are exhilarated to finally go home after long periods of time at the front, and the men dread when they have to return to battle. However, in Paul’s case, he desires to return to the front, rather than staying in his home town and seeing his mother in pain, he yearns to feel numb again. Therefore, Paul is in “agony” because before going on leave, he was hopeless and had no will to live, thus making him a better soldier. Although, after visiting his mother and sister, he has rediscovered a reason to survive, making it harder to go back. Moreover, the word, “comfortless,” illustrates how Paul feels isolated even at home, he feels little comfort where he grew up.

“We have almost grown accustomed to it; war is a cause of death like cancer and tuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery. The deaths are merely more frequent, more varied and terrible.” [271] This quote explains how “normal” death is when fighting in war and that it is so inevitable, the soldiers become accustomed to it. Even when all of Paul’s friends have passed and Kat is the only one left, his reaction to his death is uncaring. “All is usual.

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

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.

Disillusionment was shown in ¨All Quiet On The Western Front¨ when Paul was think twice on coming to the war and not haven stayed back home to take care of his sister

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.

Paul learns that war obtains the capability to demolish society. War destroys so many innocent people’s lives, whether it kills innocent human beings or shatters the innocence of those who fight in

When disaster struck, we all had to do something. I’m not saying I was a hero. All I did was slide around in the mud and try to pull people up” (83, 85). Paul does not think of himself as a hero on any means, even after risking his life to save others. This shows that he can’t see that he is a strong minded and important person.

(page 186) In All Quiet on the Western Front, however, Paul has to do just the opposite. Paul, originally a high school graduate, now had to numb himself to the death and violence of the front. He put it as "Men who have been up as often as we have become thick skinned. Only the young recruits are agitated."

For example, when Paul describes the new recruits and how they act in battle, he says to the reader “They listen, they are docile- but when it begins again,in their excitement, they do everything wrong” (134) It is practically a genocide, these new recruits are not ready for war and what it takes, they act like eager children, and die like flies. Furthermore, when the battle is at an end, a man calls and counts the men, Paul tells the reader “ And there is a long silence before the voice asks: ‘Anyone else?’- and waits and then says softly: ‘In squads’- and breaks off and is only able to finish: ‘Second Company-march easy’”