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All Quiet on the Western Front

In the book, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque showed how the war destroyed the soilders physically, mentally, and emotionally. This book shows all of this because you see throughout the book soldiers dieing and being decapitated. This in turn is very hard for the soldiers, because at the very first of the book you see that Paul and some of the other soldiers make a great bond while they were in training camp. Throughout the book this bond keeps the soldiers very strong, but as some of the soldiers die you start to see Paul lose faith in the war. The main reason why is because the war took the only friends who understood him. We also see how the war affects Paul mentally. You see this when he goes on leave and travels back home. They way he acts in his home town, you would think that he is a stranger that's never been there before. The people in town seem to think that war is a glorious thing, but Paul knows the real truth on how brutal it really is.

Remarque also tries to show how war makes you lose your innocence. I think he does a great job on this part of the story, and I think this because since he was also in World War I he knows the experiences of a soldier so he knows how it really is out there. We see the loss of innocence when Paul goes back to visit his family. He can't relate to them anymore, because they still have their innocence but Paul does not. This is one of the other reasons why he feels that he can only relate to his comrades on the battle field. We see the biggest loss of Paul's innocence when he lies to Kemmerich's mother, he swears that it is important but there is nothing important left in him. In the end he is truly not innocent anymore, because you see how it bothers him when he sees thinks that are innocent he feels like he would make them not innocent.

I believe that World War I was an inhumane experience for the people involved in it. First of all, the doctors did not have the equipment they have today so most of the time their techniques with the wounded soldiers were rather barbaric. Also we see that when the soldiers have to go to the restroom they all have to set down by each other. The most inhumane thing we see in the whole book is when Lewandowski has sex with his wife in the hospital in front of the other soldiers. This part really bothered me, because I saw how the war had affected those men so much that it did not bother them at all for someone to have sex in the room with them. I guess this really bothered me because in this day in age sex is a regarded as something very hygienic

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