All Quiet On The Western Front
...the men before and during the war. This novel shows the overwhelming effects and power war has to weaken the human spirit. Starting out leaving you're home and family and ready to fight for you country, to ending up tired and scarred both physically and mentally. At the beginning of the novel Paul and the rest of his classmates feel a sense of nationalism. However at the end of the war it is apparent how pointless war really is.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that greatly helps in the understanding the effects of war. The novel best shows the attitudes of the soldiers before the war, during the war, and after the war. Before the war there are high morals. During the war, the soldiers discover the trauma of war. They discover that war destroys their hopes and dreams of their life. The remains of Paul Baumer's company had moved behind the German front lines for a short rest at the beginning of the novel. After Kemmerich became Paul's first dead schoolmate, Paul viewed the older generation bitterly, particularly Kantorek, the teacher who convinced Paul and his classmates to join the military. " While they taught t that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already that death-throes are stronger.... And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through."(P. 13) Paul felt completely betrayed. " We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that
hours are not wasted. Life is short." (P 139) Views of death and becoming more comfortable with their destiny in the r became more apparent throughout the novel. Paul loses faith in the war in each passing day. Through out the novel it was evident that the war scarred the soldiers permanently mentally. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started....
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