Wounds of War
In All Quiet on the Western Front Paul witness all the horrors of war. He sees death crawling towards the wounded soldiers in the wood, hospital, and on the front. When a soldier was wounded it killed them, they lost a limb or they got sent back to the front. Another awful part of war is soldiers would get shot and stranded out in the woods. They would yell for help, but were never found. Mental wounds were another injury of war. Paul would see people go insane on the front and some soldiers got shellshock. The worst part of the war for Paul was watching all of his comrades die, and his connection with the ones he loved at home fade away. The horrors of war is clearly represented in both Battle Scars and All Quiet on the Western Front with physical wounds, mental wounds, and loss of loved ones.
In both Battle Scars and All Quiet on the Western Front the soldiers haft to go through horrific physical wounds. One of these wounds are lost of limbs. When “Kemmerich” “lost his foot” none of his comrades dared to tell him
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Paul watched his entire high school class die in war. When Albert got shot he sweared “If they take off my leg, I'll put an end to it” to Paul (Remarque,242). Paul try's his hardest to keep them together, but in the end Paul get sent off to the front knowing once he leaves Albert will end his own life. When Paul is back at the front his father figure Kat gets shot. He carries Kat to the matic and thinks “Kat is saved” (Remarque,290). But “it'll never be over, until” he “tell me it's over” (Fiasco). Paul is told by a matic “he is dead”, he tried to prove he was alive, but to Paul's dismay he found his last friend was dead (Remarque,290). Paul has lost everyone he has ever loved and then lost all hope and strength to live on. Out of physical wounds and mental wounds the loss of a loved one and loss of hope is the worst part of
In All Quiet on the Western Front, the main character Paul goes back to his home, the people he meets still think that the Germans are winning the war. During the war, Paul takes a leave for 17 days to go back home to visit sick mother and family. While back home, the villagers come and talk to Paul about the war. They discuss what land they will take. The villagers think that
This shows us how war can bring men together in peace. During the roasting of the goose Kat's voice brings Paul peace and reassurance. Toward the end of the book Kat is killed, and for Paul it is such a horrible loss. The only thing helping Paul survive was the brotherhood of his friends. With Kat dead that is no longer possible.
"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die"- Herbert Hoover. The leaders who decide to start the war do not have to fight, but the people who do not want to fight, like nineteen year old Paul and his friends, are the ones who are killed and injured. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Paul changes physically and emotionally through war. Set in Germany during World War I, Paul and his friends must do the unthinkable to survive the war and it causes them to slowly lose their identity. Paul is changed by the harsh effects of the war through his dehumanization, rapid personal growth, and alienation from the rest of the world.
All Quiet On The Western Front Essay | English – Parks | 9/8/2017 | Noah Fallon
As Paul’s story progresses, one by one, he watches all of his friends die. The friendly farmer Detering is driven mad by homesickness and is caught as a deserter and convicted by marshal court. Muller is fatally shot in the stomach during a battle and dies a slow and painful death. He gifts the boots given to him by Kemmerich to Paul. Leer dies after bleeding out from a deep wound in his thigh. Eventually only Paul and Katczinsky as the last two surviving friends. However Kat receives a severe injury to his shin and Paul must carry him to safety. Paul makes it to a triage station only to discover that Kat, whom he had been carrying on his back, had been hit in the head and killed by a piece of shrapnel along the way. His final friend in the entire world was dead. Though parting from his friends was “very hard”, Paul remarks that “a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army” (Remarque 269).
World War I was one of the deadliest wars in human history, taking the lives of millions and changing the lives of countless more. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, 19- year-old German soldier Paul Bäumer strives to survive in the Western Front of World War I. Throughout the novel, the war forces Paul to change his character into a hopeless soldier that relies on instinct to only survive in battle. Once an ambitious and compassionate young man, the horrors, and anxieties of war induces Paul to detach his inner personality from reality forces him to focus on war. As a result, Paul struggled to understand himself and could not conceive a future without war, transforming his existence into an endless suffering, destroying Paul long before the war kills him.
One of the best, if not the best war novels that is Erich Remarque's “All Quiet on the
Again, Paul visits Kemmerich during his last moments in attempt to comfort his comrade. Paul speaks with him of the future and his home and asks him to finally go to sleep but notices it is not working as he is weeping and “ says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him” (Remarque 31). This personification demonstrates the intense and numerous encounters between the soldier and death as he describes the departure of Kemmerich’s short life similarly to the emotional encounter of a relative sitting and eventually leaving a loved one when they die. Paul and his comrades are in the midst of a bombardment on the front, he attempts to help a man who appears to be injured but finds he is dead and then remembers that he is in the graveyard and must find protection. He remembers that he is in the graveyard and must seek protection “but the shelling is stronger than
When he is reunited with his mother "[they] say very little," but when she finally asks him if it was "very bad out there" Paul lies. In trying to protect her by lying, Paul creates a separation between his mother and himself. As Paul sees it, the tragedies and horrors of war are not for the uninitiated. Sadly, the true nature of war further separates the two generations.
All Quiet on the Western Front Essay We learn about past wars in history. We hear stories from soldiers that partake in these wars, but do we really understand what goes on out on that battlefield? We would have to see and experience it ourselves to fully grasp why soldiers come back so scarred. Not only physically but emotionally, and socially as well.
The novel All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, is story of the fictional character Paul Baumer and his troop Troop 9 as they battle in World War I on the Western Front for Germany. This novel differs from most war novels in that it does not portray the men as valiant soldiers protecting their country. The way that the story is told strips away the romanticized view warfare and portrays the raw emotions that come with being on the front lines of a battle. As both Paul Baumer’s life and the battle progress, Paul’s values, along with those of the other soldiers, evolve until they culminate in Baumer’s own passing.
In the words of Otto Von Bismarck, “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” Many of the preceding war novels to All Quiet on the Western Front, misrepresented or overlooked the anguish of war, in favor of more resplendent ideals such as glory, honor, or nationalism. The predominant issue of All Quiet on the Western Front is the terrible atrocities of war. The reality that is portrayed in the novel is that there was no glory or honor in this war, only a fierce barbarity that actually transformed the nature of human existence into irreparable, endless affliction, destroying the soldiers long before their deaths.
Few people know what it actually feels like to fight in a war; and many soldiers are reluctant to tell the truth about the reality of war. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Remarque portrays an anti-nationalist attitude through some major symbols. This makes one questions if the people really had pride in there country, like the soldier's parents, higher ranking officers, and the teacher's back home.
"A wounded soldier? I shout to him-no answer- must be dead." The dead body has fallen out the coffin and the coffin has been unearthed because of the shelling. Even the dead and buried cannot rest in peace during this war. This just adds to the horror of the situation Paul is in.
Yet another example of the brutalization and dehumanization of the soldiers caused by the war occurs during Paul’s leave. On leave, Paul decides to visit his hometown. While there, he finds it difficult to discuss the war and his experiences with anyone. Furthermore, Paul struggles to fit in at home: “I breathe deeply and say over to myself:– ‘You are at home, you are at home.’ But a sense of strangeness will not leave me; I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there my case of butterflies, and there the mahogany piano – but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a