Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that murder has a profound affect on man as depicted in Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front"
when the protagonist Paul Baumer, gradually moving from an idealistic German student to an embittered and realistic young man forced to both see and perpetuate senseless carnage on men, forgets the reason for hating. The author points out that trapped in the mud of the no-man's land, Paul has his illusions shattered fairly quickly, though he still seems to cling to the belief that there can still be gentleness and beauty in the world. The paper relates that, although Paul has been responsible for men's deaths before, he never witnessed the exact moment that they stopped breathing, until he stabbed a Frenchman in a trench; even after the man has finally died, Paul cannot find his way back to total sanity.

From the Paper:

"After several months in the war, Paul Baumer goes home. However, he is like the man from the country, who, once accustomed to the noise at night in the city, cannot readjust to the silence of the country. Coming home, he immediately realizes how many things have changed. He has become hardened, his mother is near death, and no one can comprehend what war is truly like. "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 veil between us." (139). Paul is unable to resume the life he once led, even for just a few weeks. His father continually asks him questions, "...in a way I find stupid and distressing." (143). Paul is also offended by his old German-master, who patronizingly tells him, "You see only your little sector and so cannot have any general survey." (145). "

More papers on Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front":

• Analytical Essay # 4180 : "All Quiet on the Western Front"
• Analytical Essay # 29845 : "All Quiet on the Western Front"
• Book Review # 104929 : "All Quiet on the Western Front"

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