Anna Standridge
Mrs. Worthington
Hour 2
Essay
As readers of Erich Maria Remarque’s book All Quiet on the Western Front we see what war is like from a German soldier’s standpoint. The central character, Paul, is a young man that fights in the trenches who personality contradicts with the way war is, essentially war causes Paul’s state of mind to change, along with the way he behaves, this can be said for all of the other soldiers. At first, Paul’s thoughts of joining the army were hesitant but relatively positive. As the war progressed, honor and anxiety unmasked themselves causing Paul to disconnect his mind from his emotions. Disconnecting his mind from his emotions allowed Paul to secure his sanity and ability to survive. “We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though may be ornamental enough in peacetime, would be out of place here. Kemmerich is dead, Haie Westhus is dying…Martens has no legs anymore, Meye is dead, Max is dead, Beyer is dead, Hammerling is dead…it is damnable business, but what has it to do with us now-we live” (Remarque 57). Paul discusses the psychological technique a soldier must learn to disconnect himself from his own emotions in order to survive the horrors of war. For example, Paul listed his friends that have died however; Paul has no time to mourn in order to focus on his own survival. In the end of the novel, Paul states the “We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will
