~Owen LaCamera, Class of 2024

Only the dead have seen the end of war.- 

~ George Santayana

Would you want to go to the army after one hundred and fifty men were killed? 11:00 am on a random Tuesday, Paul and his comrades return after two weeks of fighting in the front line. Paul is a nineteen-year-old who just joined the army because he wanted to fight for his country. All of these events are happening in the western front of Germany.  

Survival does not always mean you live. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque death is the expectation but survival is the goal. Paul goes to the war as a young high school student but he realizes that war destroys everyone, death becomes the expectation but Survival is the goal. 

In Chapter 5 Paul steals two geese from a barn and a guard dog comes to subdue Paul. After a short freeze, Paul decides to shoot the dog with a revolver to escape with the geese. The two plan to make cushions with the feathers from the geese to “Sleep soft under shell- fire.” When the two men sit at night and cook their geese, Paul has a lot to think about and reflects but he reflects that they have a profound bond. Kat thinks about the sports of life surrounded by a lifeless night. 

We sit opposite one another, …. We are two men, two-minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. …What does he know of me or him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common–now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do not even speak.   [Chapter 5] 

Survival shows how Paul lives; using his resources, to his advantage. “The terror of the front sinks deep down when we turn our backs upon it.” [Chapter 7]

In Chapter 6 the company is sent to the front area earlier than expected. Many hear rumors that a new offensive will join them. As the company is sent to the front, they walk past a huge stack of new coffins. A couple of men joke even though the coffins are meant for them. Paul recognizes that life on the front is like no other, the chance of living is smaller than the chance of dying. Paul is in the trenches physically but mentally he is at his house. 

It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bombproof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hours’ bombardment unscathed. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.”  [Chapter 6]

Paul had nothing to his name; now he is a survivor of war, suffering through the pain. With almost zero chance of survival, Paul did it.

Comradeship gets a man through life. In All Quiet on the Western Front, comradeship gives Paul hope in life. Paul is doing everything with his comrades, including watching them become lifeless. Himmelstoss having the power against Paul and his comrades makes war even harder than it already is. Himmelstoss gets sent to serve the front, when you are in the front you get the most fire and action. Though none of the men like Himmelstoss, Tjaden has a special grudge against him. Himmelstoss traits the men to complete failure during training, all the men complain and disagree with Himmelstoss. That’s just how the army is, there will always be somebody who has more power over you. 

If you train a dog to eat potatoes and then afterward put a piece of meat in front of him, he’ll snap at it, it’s his nature. And if you give a man a little bit of authority he behaves just the same way, he snaps at it too. The things are precisely the same. In himself man is essentially a beast, only he butters it over like a slice of bread with a little decorum. The army is based on that; one man must always have power over the other..  [Chapter 3]

Paul used his comrades to his advantage; bonding with them whenever he could, and getting his mind off the war. “Comrade, I did not want to kill you…But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction…now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me.” [Chapter 11] 

Paul has never killed somebody, but that changed in battle when Paul, Kat, Kropp, Muller, Tjaden, and Deterring, get sent to guard an abandoned village. When the men find fresh food and an enemy balloon spot they see the smoke from their cooking and they start to shell the men. Then… Paul got his chance. 

This is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing. Kat and Kropp and Müller 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. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts. [Chapter 10]

Kropp wants to give up, but Paul doesn’t want to lose another brother. Paul has no motivation, but his comrades change that.

Life is boring without a challenge. All Quiet on the Western Front was a challenging reading; it made me think about the smaller details and the difficult themes. 

This book had a massive impact on me.