All Quiet on The Western Front: The More I Learn, The Less I Feel

“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow” (Remarque 263). All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about 19-year-old Paul Bäumer, a soldier fighting for the Germans during World War I. He describes his experiences as he fights alongside his friends and realizes that they are struggling because the new recruits are too young to fight properly. Paul has learned to focus on the battle to ensure his survival, but the new recruits cannot control their fears and are dying. Through the juxtaposition of innocence and experience in All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque reveals that soldiers must remove their emotions to survive the horrors of war.

More experienced soldiers are able to push aside their emotions to be effective in war. Paul describes what he feels when at the front: “Men who have been up as often as we have become thick skinned. Only the young recruits are agitated. Kat explains to them: “That was a twelve-inch. You can tell by the report; now you'll hear the burst” . . . There is suddenly in our veins . . . a heightening alertness . . . The body with one bound is in full readiness” (Remarque 53-54). The veteran soldiers have learned how to prepare themselves against the shock of the bombings, but the recruits have no experience. The veterans try to help the recruits by explaining the difference in bombs to help calm them down. The recruits need to lose their fear so they can achieve “full readiness” and handle the stress of war. Through constant exposure, Paul has developed a “thick skin” to withstand the terror of the attacks. This mental discipline gives him heightened senses so he can interpret the battlefield and survive. New recruits have yet to learn to leave their emotions behind to be prepared for battle. He sees the recruits struggling around him during a battle and thinks, “Although we need reinforcement, the recruits give us almost more trouble than they are worth . . . They get killed simply because they hardly can tell shrapnel from high-explosive . . . and only whimper softly for their mothers and cease as soon as one looks at them” (Remarque 129-130). The recruits try to do some good, but they lose their courage when they see the attack, and they don’t know what to do. Their innocence prevents them from fighting effectively, so they panic in the face of real danger. Instead of watching the battlefield, they cry for their mothers and give up. They fail to see each threat and defend themselves and their comrades. Because of their innocence, they have become “more trouble than they are worth”. They need to put aside emotions and learn how to fight smarter, not harder. They will be effective in war when they are focused on fighting rather than their fears. Even with this experience, soldiers must adapt to life outside of war because, at some point, you still have to go home.

Soldiers must put aside emotions to protect their families and themselves from the experience of war. Paul comes home to visit his family and his mother is worried about his safety and says, “‘Yes, but Heinrich Bredemeyer was here just lately and said it was terrible out there now, with the gas and all the rest of it.’ . . . She does not know what she is saying, she is merely anxious for me. Should I tell her how we once found three enemy trenches . . . where the men stood and lay about, with blue faces, dead?” (Remarque 161). Paul wants to protect his mother from his horrors of war, so he pushes aside his emotions for her. He would rather have her wonder about what war is like rather than worry about him every day, knowing the full effects of war. His mother is already hurting from the stress of wartime. To know “all the rest of it” would only give her more anxiety, and possibly, cause her health to deteriorate quicker. Paul is also protecting himself, so he doesn’t have to share his feelings with anyone and not think about how the war has affected him. Seeing death on a regular basis is hard to deal with and it’s easier just to not think about it. Paul has also lost his carefree happiness. He sits in his room, trying to connect to his old life and thinks,“Speak to me - take me up - take me, Life of my Youth - you who are care-free, beautiful - receive me again - . . . And at the same time I fear to importune it too much, because I do not know what might happen then. I am a soldier, I must cling to that” (Remarque 172-173). Paul cannot be free and unburdened like his past self because of all the trauma he’s been through. He reverts to a soldier’s state of mind to protect himself from being overwhelmed by the fact that he will never be the same. The “life of his youth” has been stripped away by the trauma of war. He has too much experience to find his childlike happiness again, so he falls back into his new identity, removing his emotions like a soldier. Paul is afraid to push too much because he doesn’t like what he sees in himself. He doesn’t want to face his “care-free, beautiful” past because his present life is ugly and dismal. The soldiers only know how to detach themselves from their feelings because they have been taught that it is the only way to survive.

The soldiers cannot let their emotions overtake them or they will die. Paul and Kat notice a recruit is acting strange and tries to leave the bunker during an attack: “‘I'll be back in a minute,’ says he, and tries to push past me . . . We hold him . . . If we let him go he would run about everywhere regardless of cover. He is not the first . . . they have been sent straight from a recruiting-depot into a barrage that is enough to turn an old soldier's hair grey” (Remarque 109-110). The young recruits can’t handle the stress and fear of the random bombings, so they lose control. The veterans know that they will make mistakes if they can’t handle their emotions, and those mistakes would lead to their deaths. The recruits are too innocent to realize that they need to focus on surviving and not let their fears control them. They don’t know that if they leave the bunker during an attack, they will most likely die. They want to escape the claustrophobic bunker, and would run “everywhere regardless of cover”. They let their emotions overtake them, which prevents them from thinking rationally. The “recruiting-depot” has not prepared them to endure the hardships that “turn an old soldier's hair grey”. They bring unnecessary danger to themselves when they are not mentally prepared. Even Paul has been caught unaware. Paul fell asleep during a bombing and was surprised by an explosion nearby: “Wakening suddenly with a start, I do not know where I am . . . I lie in the pale cradle of the twilight, . . . - am I crying? I put my hand to my eyes, it is so fantastic, am I a child? . . . I recognise the silhouette of Katczinsky and . . . he says: ‘That gave you a fright. It was only a nose-cap, it landed in the bushes over there.’ I sit up . . . It's good Kat is there” (Remarque 60).

Kat helps Paul get rid of his childlike fear and survive. Paul learns that he will have his friends to rely on to help stay calm when times get tough. He must depend on others to strengthen his resolve to keep fighting. Paul sees Kat is nearby and relaxes, knowing that his comrades will keep him safe. Paul can no longer dream about a normal life if he wants to stay focused. Paul questions if he is “a child”. The time of being a child is over, now he must be a soldier. He can’t let himself be unaware of the danger around him or he could die. A bomb barely missed him and Paul didn’t know it because he let his guard down and fell asleep. Paul must put aside his innocence and emotions to be ready for the unexpected, like attacks and explosions.

The soldiers during World War I had to push past their feelings to survive. Along with their emotions, they removed their innocence as well. They learned to be effective in war and prevent their feelings from leading to mistakes that could cost them their lives. They protected their families and themselves from the trauma of war through the practice of separating their experiences in war from those around them. All Quiet on the Western Front reveals that soldiers must remove their emotions to survive the horrors of war through the juxtaposition of innocence and experience. In a similar way, we must push past our fears to do something out of our comfort zones. Like Paul and his friends, we cannot let our fears prevent us from achieving our goals. With practice, we gain the experience to reach those goals no matter how challenging it is. All Quiet on the Western Front teaches us to persevere through our fears to try new things.