All Quiet On The Western Front Essay On WarS Effect On Minds Example For Students

All Quiet On The Western Front Essay On WarS Effect On Minds All Quiet on the Western FrontErich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, a novel set in World War I, centers around the changes wrought by the war on one young German soldier. During his time in the war, Remarque’s protagonist, Paul Baumer, changes from a rather innocent Romantic to a hardened and somewhat caustic veteran. More importantly, during the course of this metamorphosis, Baumer disaffiliates himself from those societal icons—parents, elders, school, religion—that had been the foundation of his pre-enlistment days. This rejection comes about as a result of Baumer’s realization that the pre-enlistment society simply does not understand the reality of the Great War. His new society, then, becomes the Company, his fellow trench soldiers, because that isa group which does understand the truth as Baumer has experienced it. Remarque demonstrates Baumer’s disaffiliation from the traditional by emphasizing the language of Baumer’spre- and post-enlistment societies. Baumer either can not, or chooses not to, communicate truthfully with those representatives of his pre-enlistment and innocent days. Further, he is repulsed by the banal and meaningless language that is used by members of that society. As he becomes alienated from his former, traditional, society, Baumer simultaneously is able to communicate effectively only with his military comrades. Since the novel is told from the first person point of view, the reader can see how the words Baumer speaks are at variance with his true feelings. In his preface to the novel, Remarque maintains that a generation of men were destroyed by the war(Remarque, All Quiet Preface). Indeed, in All Quiet on the Western Front, the meaning of language itself is, to a great extent, Early in the novel, Baumer notes how his elders had been facile with words pri or to his enlistment. Specifically, teachers and parents had used words, passionately at times, to persuade him and other young men to enlist in the war effort. After relating the tale of a teacher who exhorted his students to enlist, Baumer states that teachers always carry their feelings ready in their waistcoat pockets, and trot them out by the hour (Remarque, All Quiet I. 15). Baumer admits that he, and others, were fooled by this rhetorical trickery. Parents,too, were not averse to using words to shame their sons into enlisting. At that time even one’s parents were ready with theword ‘coward’ (Remarque, All Quiet I. 15). Remembering those days, Baumer asserts that, as a result of his war experiences, he has learned how shallow the use of these words was. Indeed, early in his enlistment, Baumer comprehends that although authority figures taught that duty to one’s country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that, we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards—they were very free with these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see. (Remarque, All Quiet What Baumer and his comrades have learned is that the words and expressions used by the pillars of society do not reflect the reality of war and of one’s participation in it. As the novel progresses, Baumer himself uses words in a similarly false fashion. A number of instances of Baumer’s own misuse of language occur during an important episode in the novel—a period of leave when he visits his home town. This leave is disastrous for Baumer because he realizes that he can not communicate with the people on the home front because of his military experiences and their limited, or nonexistent, When he first enters his house, for example, Baumer is overwhelmed at being home. His joy and relief are such that he cannot speak; he can only weep (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 140). When he and his mother greet each other, he realizes immediately that he has nothing to say to her: We say very little and I am thankful that sheasks nothing (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 141). But finally she does speak to him and asks, ’Was it very bad out there, Paul?’ (Remarque, Here, when he answers, he lies, ostensibly to protect her from hearing of the chaotic conditions from which he has just returned. He Mother, what should I answer to tha t! You would notunderstand, you could never realize it. And you never shall realize it. Was it bad, you ask.—You, Mother,I shake my head and say: No, Mother, not so very. There are always a lot of us together so it isn’t so bad.(Remarque, All Quiet VII. 143)Even in trying to protect her, by using words that are false, Baumer creates a separation between his mother andhimself. Clearly, as Baumer sees it, such knowledge is not for the uninitiated. On another level, however, Baumer cannot respond to his mother’s question: he understands that the experiences he has had are so overwhelming that a civilian language, or any language at all, would be ineffective in describing them. Trying to replicate theexperience and horrors of the war via words is impossible, Baumer realizes, and so he lies. Any attempt at telling the truth would, in During the course of his leave, Baumer also sees his father. The fact that he does not wish to speak with his parent (i.e., use few or no words at all) shows Baumer’s movement away from the traditional institution of the family. Baumer reports that his father is curious about the war in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I nolonger have any real contact with him (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 146). In considering the demands of his father to discuss the war, Baumer, once again, realizes the impossibility, and, in this case, even the danger, of trying to relate the reality of the war via language. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. Irealize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 146)Again, Baumer notes the impossibility of making the experience of war meaningful within a verbal context: the war is too big, the words describing it would have to be correspondingly immense and, with their symbolic size, might become uncontrollable and, hence, meaningless. Decision Making EssayWe sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don’t talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with oneanother than even lovers have The grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do These elemental and primitive activities of getting and then eating food bring about a communion, a feeling in unison, between the two men that clearly cannot be found in the word-heavy environment of Baumer’s home town. Perhaps Remarque wants to make the point that true communication can occur only in action, or in silence, or almost accidentally. At any rate, Baumer demonstrates toward the end of his life that even he is not immune from verbal duplicity of a kind that was used on him to get him to enlist. Soon after he hears the comforting words of his comrades (see above), Bau mer is caught in another shell hole during the bombardment. Here, he is forced to kill a Frenchman who jumps into it while attacking the German lines. Baumer is horrified at his action. He notes, This is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 193). That is, the war, and his partin it, have become much more personalized because now he can actually see the face of his enemy. In his grief, Baumer takes the dead man’s pocket-book from him so that he can find out the deceased’s name and family situation. Realizing that the man he killed is no monster, that, in fact, he had a family, and is evidently very muchlike himself, Baumer begins to make promises to the corpse. He indicates that he will write to his family and goes so far as to promise the corpse that he, Baumer, will take his place on earth: ’I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval. I must be a printer’ (Remarque, All Qu iet IX. 197). More importantly, Baumer renounces his status as soldier by apologizing to the corpse for killing him. Comrade, I did not want to kill you You were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat In addition to the obvious brotherhood of nations sentiment that appears in Baumer’s eulogy, it is interesting to note that Baumer sees that Duval could have been even closer—like Katczinsky, a member of Baumer’s inner circle of Second Company. All of the sentiments, all of the words, that Baumer articulates to Duval are admirable, but they are absolutely false. As time passes, as he spends more time with the corpse of Duval in the shell-hole, Baumer realizes that he will not fulfill the various promises he has made. He cannot write to Duval’s family; it would be beyond impropriety to do so. Moreover, Baumer renounces his brotherhood sentiments: Today you, tomorrow me (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 197). Soon, Baumer admits, I think no more of the dead man, he is of no consequence to me now (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 198). And later, to hedge his bets in case there happens to be justice in the universe, Baumer states, Now merely to avert any ill-luck, I babble mechanically: ‘I will fulfill everything, fulfill everything I have promised you—‘ but already I know that I shall not do so (Remarque, Remarque’s point in this episode is clear: no one is exempt from the perversion of language vis-a-vis the w ar. Even Paul Baumer, who had been disgusted by the meaninglessness of language as demonstrated in his home town, himself uses words and language that are meaningless. Once he is reunited with his comrades after the shell hole episode, Baumer admits it was mere drivelling nonsense that I talked out there in the shell-hole (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 199). Why does Baumer do it? Why does he employ the same types of vacuous words and sentiments that his elders and teachers had used and for which he has no respect? It was only because I had to lie One assumes that this double meaning is apparent only in English. there with him so long After all, war is war (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 200). Ultimately, that is all that Paul Baumer and the reader are left with: war is war. It cannot be defined; it cannot even be discussed with any accuracy. It has no sense and, in fact, is the embodiment of a lack of any kind of meaning. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque shows the disorder created by the war. Thisdisorder affects such elemental societal institutions as the family, the schools, and the church. Moreover, the war is so chaotic that it infects the basic abilities, not the least of which is verbal, of humanity itself. By showing how the First World War deleteriously affects the syntax of language, Remarque is able to demonstrate how the war irreparably alters the order of the world itself. Bibliography:WORK CITEDRemarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books, 1984.