All Quiet On The Western Front
Paul and the other members of the Second Company are resting after being relieved from the front lines. When they went to the front, their company contained one hundred and fifty men. Only eighty returned. The quartermaster requested rations for a full company, but on the last day, they suffered a heavy attack. The surviving men receive a double ration of food and tobacco. Paul, Leer, Muller, and Kropp are all nineteen years old. They are all from the same class in school, and they all enlisted voluntarily. Tjaden is the same age, but he is a locksmith. He eats voraciously, but remains thin as a rail. Haie Westhus, also the same age, is an enormously built peat-digger. Detering is a ...
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survival during their last trip to the front. Kemmerich, one of Paul's classmates and a member of the Second Company, is in the hospital with a thigh wound.
Paul and his classmates' schoolmaster, Kantorek, urged them to enlist as volunteers to prove their patriotism. Joseph Behm did not want to go, but eventually he gave in to Kantorek's unrelenting pressure. He was one of the first to die, and his death was particularly horrible. With Behm's death, Paul and his classmates lost their innocent trust in figures of authority. Kantorek often writes letters to them filled with the empty phrases of patriotic fervor.
They go to see Kemmerich, who is unaware that his leg has been amputated. Paul discerns from his sallow skin that Kemmerich will not live long. Muller wants Kemmerich's boots, but Paul subtly discourages him from pressing on the matter. They will have to keep watch until Kemmerich passes on and take the boots before the orderlies steal them. Paul bribes an orderly with ...
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to give his boots to Muller. Kemmerich begins to cry silently and refuses to respond to Paul's attempts at conversation. He dies within minutes, and Paul takes his boots to Muller.
Commentary
Before World War I, wars generally did not involve non- stop fighting over a period of years. Often, the armies were comprised of hired mercenaries, or professionals who fought seasonally. The opening of the novel portrays a very different picture. The soldiers are volunteers or conscripts. The army has become an expression of patriotic duty, not a career. Paul and his classmates enlisted because their schoolmaster, Kantorek, pressured them to do their duty by their country. Outside the ...
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"All Quiet On The Western Front." Essayworld.com. May 11, 2006. Accessed April 20, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/All-Quiet-On-The-Western-Front/45759.
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