There were a total of 38 million men fighting in WWI, these men were Russian, German, French, Italian, English, American, Hungarian, Austrian, Bulgarian or from the Ottoman Empire. They all had the same experiences while at war. There were differences depending where they were placed, but the fundamental characteristics were the same. There were a total of 17 million dead and 20 million wounded; the survivors were left to live with the effects of being dehumanized because of all the death they saw. Within three great works about WWI, “Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemingway, there is an universal idea of the dehumanizing aspect of war is shown during the war, at home, and after the war. “Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon, tells about how the men at war become dehumanized.
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All the soldiers knew that while fighting they were a different person, but over time their old selves were lost and they only knew how to be this new person the front lines made them. “We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill” (116). These men turned into animals, with no emotion or thought besides survive and kill. They become lost in the war and don’t know how to differentiate between their old selves and themselves when fighting. Later in the story, Paul talks about how he knows that they won’t be able to go home and reenter society as their normal selves. They are conscience of the dehumanization that has occurred, but the soldiers don’t try to change it because they need to survive and the only way to do that is by having no
All the soldiers knew that while fighting they were a different person, but over time their old selves were lost and they only knew how to be this new person the front lines made them. “We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill” (116). These men turned into animals, with no emotion or thought besides survive and kill. They become lost in the war and don’t know how to differentiate between their old selves and themselves when fighting. Later in the story, Paul talks about how he knows that they won’t be able to go home and reenter society as their normal selves. They are conscience of the dehumanization that has occurred, but the soldiers don’t try to change it because they need to survive and the only way to do that is by having no