All Quiet on the Western Front’ Essay on War’s Effect on Minds
Fiction is a powerful tool with which to express a truth or make a point. A juxtaposition of interconnected external and internal conflicts which affect the characters can be used to emphasize the importance of such a truth. In All Quiet on the Western Front, the author, Erich Maria Remarque, creates such a duality to great effect. Paul, the protagonist of Remarque’s novel, is a German soldier fighting in World War I against the English and French. As the war goes on, defining experiences force Paul to confront the fact that the ‘enemies’ are people just like him, and he develops sympathy for people on both sides. He also comes to believe that the war is needlessly harming others and himself. His changing beliefs and his dissatisfaction come into conflict with his societal responsibility to fight and show patriotism. The immediate effects of ignoring what he finds to be wrong wreak havoc on Paul’s sense of self. Paul’s internal conflict shapes the novel as a whole by allowing Remarque to powerfully make the point that war is inherently repressive and damaging to people involved.
While at the front, Paul has experiences that lead him to believe that the ‘enemies’ are people like him, and that the war is needlessly hurting everyone involved. For example, when he is stationed at a camp with Russian prisoners of war, he observes their behavior and comes to the conclusion that they are more similar than different from the people he is fighting for. With that in mind, he begins to wonder why they are enemies at all. He reflects, “Any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, than they are to us. And yet we would shoot at them again and they at us if they were free.” (pg 194). Here, Paul observes that he has no grievance against the people against whom he is fighting, and neither do they against him. He begins to understand the humanity of the Russians on the other side, and he begins to question the system that sets them against each other. This nascent understanding crystallizes when he hides in a shell hole and stabs a French soldier there, fatally wounding him. Paul is trapped for hours with the dying man, and he becomes profoundly disturbed by what he has done. With nothing to do but think, he begins to understand the humanity of the person he killed — how they are alike — and he has a strong emotional response. He says aloud to the Frenchman, “You were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.… But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship … Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?” (pg 223). In this situation, Paul realizes that he did not fully believe that the enemy soldiers were like him, until he was forced to confront the truth by watching another person die. He consequently feels grieved and confused about the war itself, and he cannot justify killing people who have suddenly become real and human to him, as he could with abstractions. However, his responsibility as a soldier is to do just that.
Paul’s patriotic duty to support the war, which is forced on him by society, directly clashes with his unspoken belief in the humanity of soldiers on both sides. This is the personal conflict Paul experiences. Paul thinks abstractly about the nature of war, referring to the same Russian prisoners: “A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends.” (pg 193-194). This statement expresses how Paul sees war: arbitrary, with no real reason for the soldiers to be fighting each other. However, it equally illustrates the other side of Paul’s internal conflict. He fully admits that orders from his higher ups are sufficient to entirely change his actions regardless of his moral qualms, and even to dictate his perception of certain people. In this case, the power of the societal hierarchy forces Paul and his fellow soldiers into a certain mindset, whether they like it or not. There is obviously a conflict because Paul recognizes the humanity of all the soldiers, but that is not something he is allowed to do. As portrayed by the sensory imagery of Paul’s thought, one word of command will reduce a human being to a cardboard cutout – merely ‘enemy’ or ‘friend.’ Another clear example of Paul’s internal conflict is in the aftermath of his experience with the French soldier. The way in which Paul interacts with his comrades is especially telling. At first he does not mention the events in the shell hole at all. The next day, however, he tells his two best friends, Albert and Kat, about what happened. He is still ill at ease. They insistently argue that he has nothing to be upset about, and that he did what a soldier is supposed to do. Paul at first feels comforted that he had only fulfilled his responsibilities, thinking confidently “It was mere drivelling nonsense that I talked out there in the shell hole.” (pg 228). During the discussion, they observe another soldier sniping at the French with a rifle, and keeping track of his kills. Once again, Paul considers the humanity of his enemies, and he bluntly retorts “I would not do that” (pg 229). Shortly afterward, his tone shifts, and he says “It was only because I had to lie there with him [the Frenchman] so long. After all, war is war.” (pg 229). The two distinct tones of Paul’s statements attest to the conflict between two contradictory positions. On the one hand, he repeatedly tries to accept what he has done because it is his duty to continue doing such things. On the other hand, he cannot reconcile himself to what he did, nor to the war itself, because he intuitively recognizes the humanity of the man he killed. In this way, Remarque depicts a struggle between Paul’s moral intuition and the grim responsibility pushed on him by military leaders, his own friends, and the society as a whole.
Knowing the brutal and arbitrary nature of war, but being forced to perpetuate it and play a role in it emotionally hurts Paul, damaging his sense of self. Remarque effectively criticizes the nature of war using the effects on Paul’s character as well as a graphic depiction of war itself. Paul’s time in the shell-hole with the Frenchman is keenly distressing to him because he feels how terrible the act of killing is, and yet he has done it and will continue to do it in order to survive and fulfill his responsibilities. That contradiction is painful to live with and impossible to accept. He thinks, “This is the first time I have killed with my hands … Kat and Kropp and Muller have experienced it already, when they have hit someone; it happens to many, in hand to hand fighting especially – But every gasp lays my heart bare.” (pg 221). The expression of Paul’s heart being ‘laid bare’ describes the emotional pain Paul feels because of how the internal conflict affects him. He ultimately chooses to continue carrying out his responsibilities even while violating his conscience, but doing so is damaging. A while after his experience with the Frenchman, Paul is injured and sent to a hospital. Conditions in World War I hospitals were miserable, especially from the soldier’s perspective. Paul, observing the slow and painful deaths of many soldiers, considers the hospital to be a horrible place. He contemplates how the system creating those abominable conditions is impossible to justify, thinking “This is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia … It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood from being poured out, these torture chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.” (pg 263). Thus, Paul concludes that the justification of war is empty and false because it has led to so much suffering. Paul’s previous worldview of nationalistic duty is being shattered by a horrific reality. These words are not Paul’s alone. Remarque is using the narrative from Paul’s perspective to emphasize the devastating damage done by war. It not only causes death and suffering, which Paul is forced to catalyze and be witness to, but it also tears the protagonist apart from the inside.
Remarque creates a heart-wrenching internal conflict which Paul bears in All Quiet on the Western Front. He thereby creates a strong critique of a process which sets humanity against inhumanity, and forces soldiers to make an impossible choice. On one side of Paul’s conflict is his need to recognize people on both sides as fellow human beings, and his desire to follow what he believes is right. On the other side is the crushing responsibility to serve the country, and to play a part in the war, which he cannot avoid. By showing the terrible effects of war on the protagonist and those around him, Remarque is able to show that it is inherently damaging to those involved. Any reader would agree that the nationalistic idea of responsibility depicted, which suppresses individualism and moral choice, is wrong and deadly. Small wonder Hitler and the Nazis banned this novel. The text sends a message which is important and meaningful. War creates inhumanely destructive conflict, external and internal, which no human should have to face.