Book Report: All Quiet On The Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front The book stars Paul Bäumer, a young German gentleman who enlists, with his friends, to fight in World War I. After ten weeks of military training at the hands of Corporal Himmelstoss Paul’s outlook on the war completely changes. He believed, at the time of enlisting, that he was enlisting for noble reasons ones of patriotism and nationalism, then the Corporal shows him the ugly side of the war, the brutality. Their lives become constant fear. After a short break from the training the majority of the company does not return to the front. One of the friends Paul enlisted with, Kemmerich, contracted gangrene post leg amputation. He then dies very slowly and painfully. This is when Paul determines that to survive in the war you need to be able to separate …show more content…
The most marking part of the book, in my opinion, was when Paul and some of the other men are sent out to lay barbed wire at the German/French front. The French side’s artillery then pounds them forcing them to hide in a nearby graveyard where the force of the gunshots make the corpses in the graveyard rise from their graves. While at the same time the soldiers hiding among the corpses start falling dead. The soldiers then go back to camp and discuss their plans for after the war ends, The majority of the soldiers have some idea of what they want to do post World War I, but as a group they feel as though the war won’t ever end. The only one who feels somewhat differently is Paul because he isn’t so sure he wants the war to end because he has no idea what he would do with his life. There is then a large battle and Paul becomes crazy and starts acting instinctively to survive on the battlefield. The Paul from the beginning of the book is now completely changed and no longer recognizable as the same man. Paul and his friends, on a reprieve, go swimming and meet some French girls with whom Paul would like to be innocent, pre-war Paul, with again, but