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  • Essay / Isolation caused by war in All Quiet in The Western Front

    “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived through it can, only as someone who has seen its brutality, its stupidity” ( Eisenhower 1). These are words written by Dwight Eisenhower, a five-star general in the United States Army and a veteran soldier of World War II. Eisenhower reveals that although he did not die in World War II, he never really survived; the horrific events he endures form memories that will stay with him for the rest of his life. Eisenhower's Inner Feeling describes the thoughts of the fictional character Paul Baumer, the protagonist of All Quiet on the Western Front. Isolation was one of the main reasons why soldiers kept their hearts closed during the First World War. Through the eyes of Paul Baumer, Erich Stratégie, the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, illustrates that in addition to isolation from others, soldiers experience isolation from their families, and even from themselves. same, during the First World War. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIsolation from others is the most common form of isolation depicted in the novel and occurs during World War I. Soldiers train to become detached killing machines, having no sympathy for either their comrades or their enemies. After stabbing a French artilleryman, Paul Baumer is forced to watch the enemy soldier die next to him. Baumer talks to the man and thus gains sympathy for him. When the gunner finally dies, Baumer is dismayed. “I am not talking about the dead printer” (Remark 228). Baumer does not tell his comrades about his encounter with the enemy soldier, because he knows that he is being ridiculed and punished for sympathizing with the enemy. The soldiers are instructed not to trust anyone. The First World War ruined soldiers by making them lose the ability to love. Another side effect that soldiers at war experience is loneliness and the feeling that no one can relate to them. Towards the end of the novel, Baumer says: “As the months and years come, they will be able to do nothing more. I am so alone and so hopeless that I can face them without fear” (Remark 295). War, especially World War I, desensitizes soldiers to the world around them. When his last comrade "Kat" dies, Baumer feels like there is no one left who can identify with him. Additionally, being isolated from someone as close as your family is much worse than being isolated from members outside of your family. Soldiers returning from war are doomed to isolation from their families. They feel like no one can relate to them except other soldiers. So when soldiers are removed from the front, they have no one to identify with. Ordinary townspeople are incapable of understanding the horrors of war. In chapter seven of the novel, Paul Baumer obtains temporary leave from the front to return “home”; however, Baumer implies that he cannot feel at home in his house. "I take a deep breath and say to myself, 'You're home, you're home.' But a feeling of strangeness does not leave me, I do not feel at home among these things” (Remark 160). Even though Baumer spent his entire childhood in a house he calls "home" and with people he calls "family," the house does not seem familiar to him and the people seem strangers. Later in the chapter, Baumer says, “There is my mother, there is my sister... but I am not there myself. There is a distance, a veil between us” (Remark 160). War creates a permanent barrier between soldiers and the rest of the.