The pursuit of Happiness in a hopeless place.

The Pursuit of Happiness in a hopeless place.

By Mason                             

The first thought that came to me right after finishing this book was a question was most definitely what was the reason for all of this? Happiness is a necessary emotion to live a healthy lifestyle, but are soldiers ever living a healthy lifestyle or even getting the necessary means of survival supplied to them like the problem of low Food they have, and have ever seen Paul happy in the book? Well Paul is a simple, kindhearted, sensitive, young man at least he was until he joined into the war, he describes himself as a poetry writer and someone who enjoys spending time with love ones he directly connects this with happiness and as the book progresses you start to see a HUGE amount of disassociation from those passions and feelings he once had before. The war caused him to not only change his views on what he thought about happiness it caused him to basically push down all of his emotions to keep his sanity and survive during the war, in the book you can see he talks about animal instinct a ton this directly relates to him pushing down his emotions because just like an animal at that time instinct is the only thing that can save you. After the war lets up and they go back to the barracks and have some free time you can see that Paul really enjoys what he used to take for granted ever so much, like hanging out with dear friends and having a one on one emotional conversation we can see he really enjoys this when he goes to hang out with Kat when they stole the geese to cook up. Another thing he enjoys is going back home when he isn't bombarded with questions about "how is the war?" and glorified as a trophy by his Father, which is another than that really bothers him on how the war isn't for their happiness its more for societies happiness. This is portrayed by Paul always explaining on how it would be a pleasure to see the leaders of the countries fight it out and have them watch and sit on their butts all day, he is very annoyed with fighting for something he doesn't necessarily believe in and that really brings him down. To conclude the only happiness Paul has ever experienced DURING the war was his final moments in his life after that it was some time of serenity and explainable calmness that overwhelmed everyone the last bullet the last death you could say it was All quiet on the western front after that.