The Cause Of Death Essay, Research Paper

“THE CAUSE OF DEATH”(271)

Erich Maria Remarque’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

is a very interesting and true-to-heart novel based in the first world war

where many men and women died because someone called them the

enemy. The main character is Paul Baumer, a nineteen year old man who

is swept into the war, along with his friends, not one day before he is out

of school. They are sent to the front to “protect the fatherland” or

Germany as it is called. Paul and his friends go from this idealistic

opinion to disillusionment throughout the book as they discover the truth

that the enemy is just like them, and Paul’s friends start being killed one-

by-one. This novel is a gripping account of how war is most of the time

bloody and horrid. The few who came out of this war were not the people

they were when they left. They become pale and emotionless, without

feeling or thought. Some killed themselves, they had experienced ultimate

horror, the horror of war. The novel starts two years after Paul and his

friends first reached the front and then goes back and forth between

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present and past. The main topics throughout the book is the change from

idealism to disillusionment, the loss of Paul’s friends, and especially the

loss of Paul’s innocence.

The change from idealism to disillusionment is really the driving

force behind the novel. From young school boys, listening to their

schoolmaster asking “Won’t you join up comrades?”(11) to “weary,

broken”(294) men, idealism and disillusionment play a major role on

Paul’s decisions and thoughts. For example, on the second page of the

novel, Paul says, “It would not be such a bad war if only one could get a

little more sleep.” (2) Later in the book, a disillusioned Paul says of the

same war, “I see how people are set against one another and in silence,

unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.”(263)

Even though he has been in the war two years, the first quote shows how

Paul’s idealism is still strong. In the second quote, Paul sees the war for

what it truly is, a waste of time, food, money, and young men. The scar of

war left a deep gash in the mind of Paul Baumer.

The loss of Paul’s friends was a factor that increased Paul’s change

from a young, proud idealist to a weary, disillusioned soldier. When

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Kemmerich, Paul’s friend, died, Paul felt happy to be alive and senses

everything “as never before.”(30) As more of Paul’s friends die, he

realizes just how bad this war is . Not did his friends brings this to his

eyes, but other people he sees, the new soldier who loses his mind, the

lance-corporal who lost his head, and the dying French soldier whom Paul

saw as a person, not a monster as the Kaiser would have him believe.

These people and many others were pivotal in the breaking down of Paul’s

idealism. However, this is not a very positive way to find reality as people

had to die to show Paul how the war really is and how it effects him and

what friends he has.

The second main topic is the loss of Paul’s innocence. Paul is a

smart man before the war, who enjoys reading and drawing. He had a

bright future ahead, but the war killed his future. Every man he knew

wanted him to join the war, defend Germany, and come back a hero.

When he heard the first shell, saw the first man die, killed his one of the

enemy, he was never the same Paul again. The reader sees this when Paul

goes home on fourteen day leave. He wants to “think (himself) back into

that time,”(171) when he felt the exhilaration of picking up books and

falling into an abyss of wild illusion. But when he looks at his books, his

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bed, his old clothes, and his drawings, he experiences “a terrible feeling of

foreigness.”(172) In the end, as Paul stands up in the trench, right before

his death, he combines the young, idealistic Paul, and the ruthless, weary

soldier Paul. He has a single unity in both, a unity that gives him the

reality that war is not as bloodless as he thought.

The discovery that the enemy was as human as Paul did not come

until late in the book, when he was back from the training base far from

the front. Not only did his idealism cover him from this truth, but training

did also had a hand in it. Everyday in boot camp, he was tried to kill

without thought or provocation. He never had the chance to really look

into the eyes of the enemy. They said the Allies were not to be trusted. It

wasn’t until he saw what he had done to “the printer, Gerard Duval” (225)

did he finally see the true enemy, “the Kaiser.”(205) The Russians, and

the discussion with his friends are examples of how this came about. Paul

had to straccess to classified information (10). Through all the research about background of Navy Seals and training tactics is which make the novel great. That is why Without Remorse is the most detailed novel this researcher has read.

Tom Clancy novels have done so well and have been popular for numerous reasons. The key reason for this is Tom Clancy?s success is due largely to his accurate portrayal of the military. His unique styles of suspenseful endings are also well liked by readers. All of this helps make all of Tom Clancy?s books adored by faithful readers and new ones alike.