All quiet on the Western Front
Erich 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 tha
Moreover, the war is so chaotic that it infects the basic abilities, not the least of which is verbal, of humanity itself. His face was quite calm'" (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 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, All Quiet IX. He cannot write to Duval's family; it would be beyond impropriety to do so. Any attempt at telling the truth would, in fact, trivialize its reality. He assures Kemmerich's mother that her son "'died immediately. As noted above, he is quite willing to give her such an asseverationbecause the words he uses in doing so mean nothing to him. Here, when he answers, he lies, ostensibly to protect her from hearing of the chaotic conditions from which he has just returned. These voices, these quiet words . During this patrol, Baumer is pinned down in a shell hole, becomes disoriented, and suffers a panic attack. In his preface to the novel, Remarque maintains that "a generation of men .
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