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It alls seems useless to them now. Education, wealth, or any other civilian factor has no significance at the front. They have no reference point to imagine a future outside the military or how to assimilate back into society.
The younger soldiers have different experiences from the older ones. The older men usually had prewar families and jobs. They thought of the war as an interruption in the normal cycle of life and that therefore thought that it eventually would end and they would return back to normal. In their past lives, they had real identities and roles to play within society. The younger men such as Paul and his mates were blank slates with no such real identities. They came into the war and the army when they were at the beginning of their adult lives. Still, they have none among their number have any definite answers to Muller's questions (ibid). Even for them, they do not have...
In this way, Remarque emphasizes the war's ravaging effect on the real humanity of the soldiers. They live outdoors in conditions like animals, apart from real human contact where death is all to possible. In such a context, it is hard to imagine anything else but the danger around them.
Conclusion
The experiences of the soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front sound so much like the experiences of war in Vietnam, Iraq or in a dozen other locales. Probably the most tragic point of it all is that even when one comes back from war whole in body, they do not come back whole in spirit or in mind. Unfortunately, Muller's questions have no answer, even a century after the end of World War I.
Works Cited
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York, NY: Fawcett Crest, 1961. Print.
Works Cited
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York, NY: Fawcett Crest, 1961. Print.
Somewhere about half of the 70 million men and women serving in the war are killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. The brutality and horrors of the war are only one of the major themes in the book. It also addresses the alienation of the soldiers. Although remaining alive to the end of the war, many men return either physically or mentally maimed or both. Spiritually, they are empty shells who
There is no time for unnecessary or frivolous actions, no play time, or joke time, there is only survival time. But it is not only physically that a soldier must be prepared and act solely for survival, but also mentally as well. A soldier cannot daydream, long for home, reflect on the past, or even lose his concentration for even a split second. When a soldier loses his focus on
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Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque. Specifically, it will contain a historical analysis of the book, and look at the question: "how and why does World War I have an impact on this novel as it does? "All Quiet on the Western Front" is a war novel that brings the true horrors of war home to the reader in an effort to show the futility of
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front This novel takes place during World War I, and focuses on the changes inflicted by the war on one young German soldier. This character, Paul Baumer, transforms from something of an innocent youthful figure to more of a hardened and traumatized veteran. As the story progresses, Baumer becomes more isolated and loses ties with his parents, elders, school, and his religion. The