Paul Baumer's Humanity In All Quiet On The Western Front

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Paul Baumer is not able to maintain his humanity throughout the novel and the war ultimately tears that away from him. The first signs of his loss of humanity is when he visits his mother for a short time. He lies to his mom about the severity of the war. He also lies to Kemmerich’s mom about how her son died a painless death when that was not the case. He develops his loss of humanity even more when he returns to camp to find Muller had died in the war while he was away. His loss of humanity comes to its max when Kat dies and at the end of the novel when he himself dies. Paul returns to his home and town and his sister is the first to greet him as Paul is crying as he enters his home. He goes into his mother’s room to find her not well. It seems that she will die soon. Before Paul is even approached with the question about the severity of the war this is the turning point of Paul’s humanity. He is realizing that there is nothing he can do to help his mother being away at war. Paul is then given the question by his mother about the war. He tells his mother that the war is “all quiet” and that war is not bad at all. This was a blatant lie on Paul’s part can cannot stay truthful with his own mother. He then goes and visits Kemmerich’s mother and gives her the sad news about her son. Paul still manages to lie straight …show more content…
He is in the trench as he is thinking about all the memories he has had and he stands up to let the enemies shoot him and end his life. This was indirect suicide because he let the enemies get to him. This is when Paul loses all humanity because suicide shows Paul completely lost it. This event shows that Paul could control his anger with the war but after all these hardships, he could not handle the war and took his own life. If Paul kept his humanity, he would not end his life because he should know it will get better. Paul does not understand that which shows his humanity is completely
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