Paul Bäumer, who?

In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, there is a continual theme of loss that narrator Paul Bäumer and his fellow soldiers experience during World War I. The public’s idea of Paul’s generation being the “iron youth” is harshly contradicted by the intense loss that the young men actually experience while fighting the war. In the early 1900s even up through to today, society continues to glorify war; but Paul’s first hand account challenges this continuous glorification. Today’s high school students are told throughout their academic career that they must prepare for the future, for college and for a job. This would’ve been the same direction Paul and his friends would have taken, if not for the war. The teenage years and early 20s are supposed to be used for finding yourself, but Paul and his friends will now never get that opportunity. Once the men have made it to the front, there is a loss of identity, of who they truly are. Paul not only doubts who he is while on leave, but a traumatizing event with a French soldier leaves him questioning who he is meant to be. The war causes a great loss of identity, as soldiers no longer know who they were before the war, and are not sure of who/what they should be coming out of the war. The war forces young men like Paul to question who they were, who they are, and who they can be.

The war has taken everything that these young men had once valued and held dear in their former lives. Paul describes the war as having “swept us away” (20). This demonstrates the way that the younger men feel about the war. The idea is that the war is physically pulling these men away from their prior lives. There’s a moment where Paul and his friends are discussing what they want to do when peacetime finally comes, but Paul hints at the idea that things could not be the same as they once were; to which Albert Kropp adds “war has ruined us for everything” (87). This is a straightforward example of the soldiers attitudes towards the war. These young men see it as something that has taken everything from them, their past, and their present. “Ruined for everything” is incredibly impactful because it embodies a complete lack of hope for the future. The war has changed and scarred these young men so much that they will never be able to fully readapt, as this quote explains. That chance at life has been ruined for them because of the war.

Along with the loss of potential opportunity, the war has stolen these young men’s sense of self, and identity. When Paul is granted leave and is allowed to return home, he describes his feelings of uneasiness and how the books he had once treasured, he no longer found inspiring. “A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me”(172), Paul describes, when he silently urges his books to thrill him once again. But now his books are no longer enticing, and this foreignness has made its way into him, because these books are no longer a part of who Paul is. The teenagers of today have books thrown at them throughout their school experience, with most students eager to learn, as Paul once was. But after being at the front, to Paul, these books are only “words-- they do not reach [him]” (173). This lack of interest in what he once found dear, shows the deterioration of his former self.

A pivotal point in All Quiet on the Western Front, is the moment between Paul and the French soldier, Gerard Duval. It’s significant because it’s the only first hand account the reader gets of Paul personally taking a life, but also the internal conflict that Paul deals with in the aftermath shows his state of mental disarray and also how guilt changes the way Paul views himself.  Paul has this moment of what almost seems like dissociation, “I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval. I must be a printer” (225), this quote suggests that Paul, under an immense amount of guilt and in shock, feels like he must become the man he has killed. Earlier, Paul speaks to the dead man’s body, saying “I will help her, and your parents too, and your child” (224) making a promise to this corpse that Paul will take his place in a way, this idea is then solidified when Paul begins to think that he must become a printer. This is a totally skewed perception that Paul has of himself in this moment. He believed that he must fill that spot that he had taken away by killing the French soldier. In his mind, Paul could no longer be Paul Bäumer, and instead must become Gerard Duval, and take the place of the man he had taken away. This is a huge identity conflict, as Paul is so unsure of what he is to become after committing these horrible acts. In this moment, Paul believes that he must become what he has destroyed.

The truth behind the war is that these young men face an incredibly deep loss of not only the material things around them, not only the lives of other people, but also the loss of their own self identities. Paul and his friends are viewed as strong and brave for going off to war, to society it was the heroic thing to do. However, in reality, war stripped these young men of everything they had, and everything they had previously believed they were. The men who fought World War I were not indestructible. The war tore them apart from the inside out, breaking down a man's perception of himself. If a person is not sure of who they are, they cannot be sure of anything. World War I took away everything from the men who fought it; ripped away their future opportunities and their chances to be apart of normal society, wiped out their former lives, and decimated their self perceptions.

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