The book, All Quiet on the Western Front (AQWF) by Erich Maria Remarque follows the soldier Paul Baumer throughout his years in the war. Narrated in first person, Paul often takes time to reflect what he is observing and making conclusions about his life as it stands now. As the book is an accurate representation of World War One, his thoughts are often depressing and focus a lot on how his generation is lost.
The term, “lost generation” is often used to describe the young men who came of age during the war and were sent to fight in what was supposed to be the high point of their lives. The term was made popular by Ernest Hemingway in his book The Sun Also Rises and his autobiography A Moveable Feast, although he credited the term to his mentor, Gertrude Stein. He says that Stein was getting her car serviced at a garage, but the service boy didn't repair it fast enough, and his boss yelled at him, saying that his generation was all lost. Stein apparently then realized that Hemingway is the same, and told him, "That is what you are. That's what you all are ... all of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation”.
However, Hemingway seemed to almost become angry about the term. After recalling the story of Stein telling him that he was part of a group of young lost men, he talks about the risks and losses of war. He finishes the thought by comparing it to Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson, as well as mentioning ego and laziness versus the disciplines of war, and says, “Who is calling who a lost generation?”. Hemingway seemed to become defensive of his generation, but that would mean that he was missing the point of the term. They were called ‘lost’ not as an insult, but merely as a descriptor. Lost in this sense means disoriented and directionless - as though they were wanderers - not vanished or gone.
This theme is carried throughout AQWF as well, and Paul mentions his misdirection in life more than a few times. He states this by saying, “we are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial -- I believe we are lost” (123). He uses different adjectives to describe different parts of a person’s life, from childhood to the elderly, and then says that the soldiers are both at the same time. Because of the war, Paul and his comrades have seen horrendous things, and have practically aged a lifetime in a few short years, making them like old men in young bodies. He also says they are like children, abandoned and helpless. He uses the adjective “forlorn”, which means pitifully sad and lonely, really emphasizing the hopelessness the war has put them in.
The generation of young soldiers are also at a very strange time in their lives, in which they do not have their future figured out, but it would be the time to start trying to get a job or a higher education if they were in peacetime. Paul and his comrades start talking about what they will do after the war is over, and Albert, a classmate of Paul, talks about the older men. He says, “[they] will go back to their jobs because they already had them [...]. But we never had any” (86). He makes the point that while they are experienced like old men, they are only experienced in killing, not in holding an actual job. And while the older men can return home and simply carry on with the lives they already had set up for themselves, the lost generation left when they were inexperienced children, but return as old souls. They continue to talk about what to do when they get back, and Albert says that he doesn’t want to do anything. While it seems like an implausible idea considering they need an income, he says, “Two years of shells and bombs, a man won’t peel that off as easy as a sock” (87).
The young men talk a little while longer before Kropp finally comes to the realization that, “the war has ruined [them] for everything” (87). He means that they can no longer go back home and simply get a job and wife and 2.5 kids. Assuming that they do not lose their lives in the war, they will definitely not come back unscathed. Many will lose a limb or a the ability to move one. They lost their innocence the second they entered the front lines and witnessed such immense terror. Now they have lost the hope of a future, or a place in society. Because they have only been surrounded by desperate men in a place with no boundaries, they no longer know how to function in society, and throughout the war they slowly lose friends. The war truly has ruined them for all, rightfully giving them Gertrude Stein's title of the Lost Generation.
Lost to War - Sargent John Singer in 1919 (it will not allow me to put the picture directly on the blog, but it is important)
No comments:
Post a Comment