Effects of War in All Quiet on the Western Front Essay Example

WWI was a difficult time for soldiers all over the world. It was a dark time filled with fear and trauma. No one deserves to go through what the soldiers and innocent civilians went through. The author of this famous novel, Erich Remarque, poured out all of his thoughts and feelings into a fictional character. So in other words, he felt the exact same way Paul, the protagonist felt. He was Paul. He suffered and over time started to lose himself, his true innocent self. This is linked to the main point of the novel; the war forever leaves a traumatized scar on the soldiers, causing them to not feel the same and look at life with different points of view.

When the soldiers went into war, they started to experience real terror and pain. Risking your own safety and knowing that death is knocking at your door, it sure is scary. Even just thinking about it, I know I can never take it. The evidence I have to support my claim is from Chapter 5, “We are not youth any longer. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.” It’s like they are “brain-washed” in a way where they believe life has no meaning anymore and that there is no hope for them. It’s understandable. Just like this quote states, “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress.” From what the evidence shows, they no longer believe in true happiness, which also refers back to the thesis, they do not feel the same and look at life with a different POV.

The soldiers did not feel like real humans anymore. They felt like weak cowards who have lost the touch of life. They were basically lifeless. The war dehumanized the soldiers. Three important quotes to support my answer, “The war has ruined us for everything”,  “My state is getting worse, I can no longer control my thoughts" and “We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.” The quotes show that they were in a weird state of mind, where they did not know what to do with themselves. They were lost! The war forced them to grow up too fast, stripped them of their innocence, and with their understanding of life, it was difficult to deal with and extremely hard for them to comprehend. They expected to live life to the fullest, but that didn’t happen. From their childhood, they most likely lived happy lives, but during the war, they saw life in a whole new perspective.

The war affected the soldiers in a way where they became/felt isolated from the rest of the world. They did not openly speak their minds to their families and they barely had serious, emotional conversions with each other. They couldn’t open up completely or else they would not be able to control it, like when they kept it inside. Paul says, “We have so much to say, and we shall never say it.” They just couldn’t. It was best for them and for their country. They knew if they showed that they were emotionally hurting, they would be considered weak and be even more broken because of the emotions. They had to stay strong to make their country proud and lead them to victory. The only thing they could confide in was mother nature. The text reads, “To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often forever…” This alone holds so much power. It indicates that a majority of the soldiers stayed alive because mother nature was faithful to them. They never felt that way before and again saw life with a different point of view. During war, mother nature made them feel secure and cared for, like a motherly figure, like family.

This novel shows the truth of how the soldiers really felt. They knew they were slowly losing control of themselves, so if they opened up, they wouldn’t be able to put their emotions back in. So, the best choice was to keep everything bottled up, for the sake of the war. The emotion and message displayed here is truly a work of art. Erich Remarque was talented and hurt. This book was a way for him to share his feelings. Erich knew that horrifying, traumatic scar would be there forever, no matter what.