The Metamorphosis of Paul Baumer in All Quiet on the Western Front :: All Quiet on the Western Front Essays

The transfiguration of Paul Baumer in completely Quiet on the Western trend Erich Maria Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front, a invention set in World War I, centers around the changes wrought by the war on one young German soldier. During his time in the war, Remarques protagonist, Paul Baumer, changes from a rather innocent Romantic to a harden 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-enlist workforcet days. This rejection comes to the highest degree as a result of Baumers 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 is a group which does understand the truth as Baumer has experienced it. Remarque demonstrates Baumers disaffiliation from the traditional by emphasizing the voice communication of Baumers pre- and post-enlistment societies. Baumer either can not, or chooses not to, blow over 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 suitable to communicate effectively only with his military comrades. Since the novel is told from the first mortal point of view, the reader can see how the articulates 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 outstanding extent, destroyed. Early in the novel, Baumer notes how his elders had been facile with words prior to his enlistment. Specifically , teachers and parents had used words, stormily 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 book their feelings ready in their waistcoat pockets, and trot them out by the minute of arc (Remarque, All Quiet I. 15). Baumer admits that he, and others, were fooled by this rhetorical trickery. Parents,too, were not averse to victimisation words to shame their sons into enlisting. At that time even ones parents were ready with the word coward (Remarque, All Quiet I.