After Paul’s brutal experience of warfare and countering his life in ignorance, he would agree to ignorance is bliss with what he is doing is joyful to him. He can hurt anyone and have no conscious. Since Paul has many responsibilities due to warfare, his attitude and personality changed him as a person. It destroyed him psychology. Paul was ignorant enough not to realize what's going on around them. Paul had to detach his emotions and suppress them to prevent himself from going mad. He forgot what civilian life was like before war. He ended up becoming like an animal, by learning to kill by instinct to survive. Before war, Paul was a sensitive and passionate person. When war arrived, he feels he can't tell anyone about his feelings. He realized
He cared for him and attempted to make him feel comfortable. Paul made himself aware of the man's humanity and he apologizes to the dead soldier. 2- We always realize something big in life when it's way too late and it has already affected our life. Pg 833 #3-6
I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another” (263). As the war comes to a gruesome end, Paul realizes how the war aged him. And how he went into the war a young man with a hopeful life ahead of him and ended the war as an exposed, aged
Paul Bäumer is introduced as the main character in the novel, and the novel is told in his experience and his perspective. He starts the story off by explaining what happens during a daily life of a soldier at a war. He goes on to explains the amount of what they eat and a number of smoking supplies that they can have. He explains that the war that they are currently in, their supplies are rationed. He then explains that 14 days ago they had to go to the front line and to go to battle.
He also experienced the effects of shell shock and became disillusioned with the war effort. Paul's experiences in the war left him scarred and
The ruthless killing brings a toll on the people who will remember that the enemies are men just like them, as Paul does when he instantly regrets his actions, saying that he would not kill him if he could redo the situation. Thus Paul sees value in being a coward, as he thinks it would be more courageous not to kill him than to go by the standards he learns. The German soldiers train as if they were animals acting upon their instincts to do so, which bears similarity to the human nature of war. Paul is at the stage where he lacks any hope for the war and does not see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is in the winter and at the time when Paul is so accustomed to the war that it is just another day for him.
Before the war Paul was innocent. He knew none of war and was just a kid who had never experienced anything bad. War can effect one in a way that can never be changed. Due to how they used to be the war has changed them so much that they will never be friendly, well-adjusted children again. Not just war has created major effects on the way people live it also somewhat belongs to the person themselves.
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.
I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. I ought never to have come on leave. " Paul cannot connect with his mother, father, or any of his personal possessions because he realizes that he is not the same person. He has to live in fear of the dangers of war, not of the superficial worries of his past. He has formed a new family, and eventually as all his friends die, he becomes satisfied with his own impending death because he knows that although his entire time has been filled with struggles, he will no longer have to fight and will be at peace.
He was scared, but went on anyway he came back he was glad that he got to serve his country. Paul is similar to him because he probably thought of things to get the war of his mind like maybe his memories.
There were many moments throughout the book where he found it difficult to interact with people back at home, or at times he felt isolated. Also, at times he was not thinking as rationally as he would have before the war. These are all effects
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
The more fighting there is the worse Paul and the men’s moral become. Paul can not see an end to the war and even if it were to end, he doesn’t believe that he can ever return back to normal. He experiences this when he first visits home during the war. “A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I can not find my way back, I am shut out though I entreat earnestly and put forth all my strength.”
He was serious and knew what it meant to be scared. Paul saw things that no one else could come to terms to understand. He experienced what warfare actually was. Including walking through shell holes, standing in the front as a target, and killing people. Paul became so adapted to the war that when he was home he would often flinch or jump at the littlest
Despite a similar internal struggle, Paul and the speaker cope with their emotions in different ways. Although both characters do in fact suppress the guilt of killing an enemy, Paul still struggles with some regret. In “The Man He Killed”, the speaker acknowledges the fact that he is at war. The idea of killing another man becomes normal to him as he realizes that he enlisted for this purpose. The speaker states that “I shot at him as he at me”, if he had failed to shoot, he could have been the one dead, thus he had to fire back in order to survive.
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.