A Hospital Alone Shows What War Is

A hospital alone shows what war is. (263)

 

       Paul Baumer enlisted in the German army as a very young man who had learned about mathematics, proper grammatical structure, and the philosophy behind the Roman Republic. He did not take a test on warfare; neither did he learn uniform theorems for the way in which battles are conducted. Once Paul reaches the ravaged trenches and the stench of death, however, he becomes quickly indoctrinated into a unique school of thought. He quickly forgets the texts from his class with Kantorek, and his mind is transformed to a primitive state in which survival, not problem solving, is the aim. This metamorphosis ultimately occurs, although over a period of time and a number of experiences and harrowing scenes. Perhaps the most shocking and influential of these sights and experiences derive from Paul’s time spent in hospitals. Once Paul reaches the end of his life on the Western front, his psyche has been wasted by the war. As he reflects, “All that meets me, all that floods over me are but feelings—greed of life, love of home, yearning for the blood, intoxication of deliverance. But no aims” (294). Paul calmly describes the horrors around him during battle, but the hospital scenes demonstrate an even more intense gravity to Paul as the full brutality of the war is realized rather than a sampling of only Paul’s individual perspective.

       The first time Paul enters a field hospital, from the reader’s point-of-view, is his platoon’s visit to see the ailing Kemmerich who has just lost a foot in an amputation procedure. While in combat, Paul appears to focus entirely on the battle at hand, and death and destruction, while he chooses to describe it, is tuned out of his survivalist, animalistic behavior. Therefore, his time in the hospital allows Paul to see the effects of war on another man in a situation separated from battle. In such an instance, the devastation on the human body is highlighted. Paul takes the time to notice that Kemmerich’s “features have become uncertain and faint, like a photographic plate from which two pictures have been taken. Even his voice sounds like ashes” (15). Paul notices not only Kemmerich’s poor physical state, the state that most associate with the troubles of war, but also his deteriorating mentality and attitude. Kemmerich slowly abandons his struggle and accepts his knowledge that he is to die soon. Additionally, the conflict over who has the right to Kemmerich’s airman’s boots illustrates the priorities of war. The soft leather boots are, in all honesty, more treasured by the majority of soldiers than is Kemmerich’s health. Young men come and go, but a quality pair of boots is not to be found often. Besides Paul, the German soldiers face few qualms about asking Kemmerich for his boots while he is lying on his deathbed. The men are undoubtedly sympathetic towards Kemmerich’s condition, but war centers around survival, so the men, especially Muller, are preoccupied with obtaining the boots. So many have already been killed that Kemmerich’s death is hardly disturbing.

       Paul’s second trip to the hospital results from a shrapnel injury. During his recovery, he is nursed, along with Albert Kropp, in a Catholic mission. The weeks in this facility are perhaps the most telling of what life is like in war. They panic over the rumor that the doctor may amputate their feet for scientific analysis, always fearing some form of unexpected attack or pain, just as in war. They watch dying men be carried downstairs to the Dying Room, none to return except one brave man. It is as if the Dying Room represents the trenches in their minds while remaining in bed upstairs will keep them out of harm’s way. Just as on the front lines, Paul and Kropp have restricted freedoms, and their little enjoyment comes from smashing glasses on the wall. As their stay lengthens, Paul and Kropp watch man after man suffer and die in rapid succession. “In the afternoon Franz Wachter’s bed has a fresh occupant. A couple of days later they take the new man away, too. Josef makes a significant glance. We see many come and go” (257). Also, despite the men’s fair distance from the battleground, they still remain out of contact with their loved ones. It is a massive operation to secure Lewandowski a few minutes with his wife.

       Paul’s last and most horrible experience in a hospital arrives when Kat, his best friend, is hit in the leg. Paul slings him over his back and treks the distance to the nearest dressing station. After much struggle and pain, Paul arrives and thinks to himself, “Kat is saved.” Paul’s jubilation is quickly shattered when he finds that a minute piece of shrapnel found Kat’s head just minutes before, killing him instantly.

       The war on the front lines quickly forces Paul into manhood as he witnesses friends die and men suffer before death. The three hospital experiences Paul undergoes show his progression into the state of mind that the war is senseless and his future is void of importance. He first watches a friend die, then witnesses countless deaths and hopeless cases in the Catholic infirmary, and his best friend is finally killed in Paul’s bloody arms.

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The Experienced vs. the Inexperienced and a Similarity

“Sometimes there are red-cross voluntary aid sisters. They are pleasant, but often rather unskilled…The nuns are more reliable. They know how they must take hold of us…” (Remarque 256)

 

            In war there are two kinds of soldiers, the inexperienced and the experienced. The inexperienced soldiers are like immature children who are tossed into a man’s game and flail about aimlessly. The experienced soldiers are the men who are in control and understand the game. Throughout the war, Paul has seen many new recruits come to the front line and has compared their actions to those of veteran warriors such as himself. Paul undoubtedly sees the differences between the two classes of soldiers. While wounded in a Catholic Hospital with Albert, Paul sees a different setting in which experience counts. He comes to the conclusion that he red-cross volunteers and nuns of the Catholic Hospital are very similar to the new recruits and the veterans and also sees how the experienced ones are more valuable than the inexperienced, even though the inexperienced are fresh and well rested.

            Paul firstly notices the comparison between the volunteers and the new recruits. In the front the new recruits are unsure of their actions. In the hospital the volunteers are also unsure of their actions. The new recruits of the front have little to no experience in war. The volunteers obviously have had little experience working in the hospital. The new recruits have not yet matured and are uncomfortable, and the volunteers have not yet matured as they are better at being pleasant than helping the patients.  Paul easily identifies the similarities between the volunteers and new recruits, as he does with the nuns and veterans.

            Paul secondly notices how “the nuns are more reliable” (Remarque 256). This reminds him of how veterans in the front can be trusted and relied upon far more than the new recruits. The veterans have the experience, the maturity, and the confidence in their own actions. The nuns, like the veterans, also have the experience, confidence, and while they may not be as pleasant as the volunteers, they are certainly more mature and get the job done. One would certainly agree that in a situation of life or death, the person that can get the job done is in higher demand. This is why then, that experience counts.

            Now that one has clearly seen the difference between the inexperience and experienced workers, one can also clearly see that the experienced workers are more valuable. No matter how cheerful, or how well rested one is, if they have not the experience to rely on, one will not be able to perform their duty as deemed necessary. Thus, one’s actions in times of war will be either useless or possibly even harmful to themselves or there comrades, and one’s actions in the hospital can be detrimental to one’s health. In conclusion, one cannot argue that the experienced are far more valuable than the inexperienced.

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Brotherly love

“Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert.” (Remarque 223)

What makes a person your enemy other than where they were born, or what they are fighting for? Paul and Gérard Duval may have been friends had they both been born in Germany or in France but when fate brought them together on opposite sides of the battlefield only one was meant to survive and in this case it was Paul. As the German sees Duval’s family and reads his letters from home, he is able to see that the freshly dead man in the shell hole with him was a human being just like him that wanted to return to his home. In all wars, survival is of absolute importance, but when a soldier kills another man and becomes aware of what he has taken, killing transforms into an uglier more personal subject.

Paul had taken the man’s life out of survival instinct. This violent nature that is embedded in men’s souls is the reason why we continue to survive through wars that occurred after All Quiet on the Western Front was written. In modern warfare, soldiers are able to fight each other with ranged weapons and hopefully they will not have to engage in hand to hand combat as Paul had due to the distance between the two sides. It would be best, when taking a life in war, to only know the enemy as a faceless being that has offended your homeland. Paul, unfortunately, was able to see war and death on a much more personal scale. After stabbing the Frenchman in an attempt to kill, he later found out that the man was alive so he attempted to heal him, but his attempts were futile and the man died.

While mourning, Paul says, “We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony (Remarque 223).” War is a chaotic time, and the soldiers sometimes seem to forget that they are fighting against other people just like them. Paul had the opportunity to perceive his enemy closer than his German comrades. It is hard for the reader to see Paul’s analysis of the event as a blessing or a curse because he knows what he is fighting against, and when he kills another man, someone’s son, father, brother, cousin, or friend had just been unjustly “torn” from them as Flint the author of “Lament” would have described.

Even though countless families and lives have been destroyed, humanity continues to wage wars. Fortunately, most soldiers are separated by cultural barriers that prevent any common ground besides humanity. Paul regretted killing Duval because he knew so much about his life and how similar they were, but had it been a different situation he may have simply moved on. Paul believed that he could have been comrades with the Frenchman had they been fighting for the same cause. An appropriate quote on this subject was given by Francois Fenelon who said, “All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.”

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Friend of Enemy

“They have faces that make one think–honest peasant faces,…”
                                                                         (Remarque 190)

The quote above strikes as significant because it demonstrates a common ground between warring sides. Paul, a German soldier, sees the enemy as just like him. There is no fundamental difference between he and them. Sadness overwhelms him as he can not believe the conditions the enemy Russians are subject to. Disgusted by their means of feeding themselves, the sights of garbage picking is horrible, yet their comradeship is quite surprising. He even finds comfort in their voices, which bring him “images of warm, cozy homes.” The meat of the lines should inform the reader more about the thoughts of Paul, as well as enemy relationship and the pointlessness of war.

Why does Paul care for the enemy? He even goes as far as to feed them his own food, also plays music with them. Referring to F.S. Flint’s poem “Lament,” young men really have no say in the decision to go to war. “The ripening fruit” receive word from higher officials, and carry out the mission. “Man is sacrificial.” The fact that Paul can not see a reason to kill the enemy further places emphasis on the ridiculousness of war. As stated in Wilfred Owen’s poem “Futility,” “are sides/…too hard to stir?” Can the entire German side adopt the feelings of Paul and end the war? No longer proceeding to starve the Russians, kicking them when they are down. Paul has made a connection with the enemy, of which only lacks a true knowledge of the enemy’s background. Nonetheless the enemy is like him, and he is like the enemy, both just unfortunate souls set on opposite sides of the battleground. 

Is war really worth it? It seems Paul is beginning to think not. He has to fight his inner emotions to kill men he was told were the enemy. He grows more sad the more he witnesses the Russian camp. The smell of the garbage makes him sick like the “stench” of the pit in the poem “Canoe Trip.” He is forced to push his thoughts to the side to maintain composure. War is an unfortunate circumstance that Paul is trapped in. He sees no reason, yet has no options. “Shoot and kill the enemy Russians,” is his only order, and he has developed a comprehensive reasoning to disclaim such statements.

In conclusion, the internal conflict of Paul is one that is most likely shared by other soldiers of the camp. The job of killing your own “brothers,” in essence, watching them starve, suffer, and the smell of death. All of which can and are beginning to have an emotional and psychological toll on the young Paul. Paul is, as Flint stated, “cast for a cruel purpose” of which he has no control over the reel. The effects of war are not only grueling in sight and action, but emotionally scarring. These lines should open the reader’s eyes to not only the senselessness of war, but provide better insight to Paul’s inner character.

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There’s No Place Like Home?

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What use is it to him now that he was such a good mathematician in school. (284)

The above passage from Erich Maria Remarque’s famous World War I novel All Quiet on the Western Front is the protagonist Paul Baumer’s characterization of his fellow soldiers and himself at the end of the war. In this particular instance, the soldier he speaks of is one of his former classmates, Leer, and Leer has just died. However, Paul does not simply aim to portray the deaths of his comrades in battle as meaningless; he also realizes here that the greater fate for his entire generation is one of hopelessness and worthlessness. For this reason, Paul does not pose what appears to be a question as a question searching for an answer: he speaks rhetorically. In other words, the passage should end in a question mark, yet it ends in a period because the young German soldier who speaks the lines already knows the answer. What few life experiences he and his teen-aged classmates had prior to enlisting are now trivial, for by this point they are all either dead or have replaced all such memories with horrible scenes and sounds from combat. More importantly, those who do make it out of the front alive once an armistice is finally reached will not be able to re-assimilate themselves back into regular society. Such is the sort of in-between situation Paul finds himself in.

For Paul, who by this conclusive point in the novel appears to be the only one of his friends from grade school still alive, any sort of full return to a normal life back home is impossible. His seventeen day leave earlier in the novel already suggests such a transformation within the young soldier, as Paul says, “…a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there is my sister…but I am not myself there” (160). Clearly, war has become the one situation in which Paul feels “at home,” and likewise, war is all he truly understands anymore. All lessons learned in his school days, like Leer’s mathematic prowess, are long gone, and in their place exist only the horrors of the frontline. Such a change is sad but true, and Paul even understands and accepts it when he declares, “I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. I ought never to have come on leave” (185).

In 1926 Ernest Hemingway popularized the term “Lost Generation,” taken from a Gertrude Stein description, with his novel The Sun Also Rises. This phrase, referring to the youth who were raised in and right after World War I, defines the exact sentiments with Paul Baumer expresses in the passage from Remarque’s novel. After his service concludes and he returns home, where will he go? What will he do? How will he relate to other citizens? Such are the questions which left World War I veterans feeling completely “lost.” Furthermore, at the very end of the novel, Baumer completely explains the meaning of the “Lost Generation.” He says, “And men will not understand us-for the generation that grew up before us…now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten-and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside” (294). His comrades are caught in the middle with no where to go and with no pity coming from either side. Issac Rosenberg’s poem “August 1914” concludes with a description of what has become of soldiers’ lives as a result of the war. He writes, “Iron are our lives/ Molten right through our youth./ A burnt space through ripe fields/ A fair mouth’s broken tooth” (9-12). Thus, the “Iron crosses” which the German soldiers were given as recognition for their service are really all that are left to define the lives of the veterans of World War I. Their youth went from a seed with endless possibilities to a molten piece of metal. In addition, the only alternative to such a fate is to lie amongst the destroyed pieces of land as a rotting corpse. Therefore, for Paul and his comrades, future means either not having one at all (death in combat) or becoming a member of the “Lost Generation” doomed to roam the world with nothing but their “Iron” lives of solitude.

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“Beast Like”

“Beast Like”

“At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years.  By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected.  It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. . . .  It is this other, this second sight in us, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without our knowing how. . . . We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers-we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.”

            The quote above describes how soldiers become beast like when they head into battle.    Paul explains that is necessary for the soldiers to shut off their brains and depend on their animal instinct for survival.  He also says that the animal instinct will cause men to randomly throw themselves onto the ground just in time to avoid a bomb.  The beast like behavior that the soldiers display is necessary when going into battle. 

            In the Red Badge of Courage it is unclear whether the men become more animal like in the battles.  In All Quiet On the Western Front it is obvious that the men become animal like.   Paul explains that if he does not use animal like instincts then there is very little chance he will survive.  He says as they march to battle their minds are all working but once they reach the battlegrounds they stop thinking and just react.  This has been a common theme throughout war literature.  In the Red Badge of Courage it is not stated that the soldiers become animal like in battle, although it is pretty apparent.

The Red Badge of Courage is a story of a young man named Henry fighting in the Civil War.  In the first battle Henry runs at the sound of the first shot.  That is the exact opposite of what Paul explains but Henry was quick to change his ways.  The next battle he fought in he did what Paul explained and shut his brain off and just reacted.  The difference between the two novels is that in All Quiet On the Western Front it is stated that the men become animal like in battle.  In the Red Badge of Courage it is left for the reader to interpret it a few different ways.

The quote from All Quiet On the Western Front is similar to that of many war literature works.  The idea of soldiers becoming animal like is brought up in most good war novels or poem.  Also it is something that only soldiers will understand no matter how in depth they explain it to people.

                                                                                             

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The Swift Maturation of a Soldier

“For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He’s lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race

And leap at purple spurted from his thigh.”

“Disabled” – Wilfred Owen

These lines describe the extreme effects a year of war has had on the man at the subject of Wilfred Owen’s “Disabled”, both mentally and physically. He is physically deteriorated as a result of the continual effects of battle. Not only has he lost his legs, but he has even lost his “colour” so that the young man who was too young to even enlist, as the poem hints, now looks “old”, and more importantly feels old. The lines describe the reasons the man now feels embarrassment and even disgust with what he has become. He has lost all that he once enjoyed: women, football, even the pleasures of his hometown. Now, he is a disabled and exhausted war veteran, who earns a polite respect, but nothing more. This is result of a war that has left him unnaturally aged, both physically and mentally.

The situation that is described echoes a common theme found throughout literature of war. Both soldiers and writers have often described the incredible aging one endures while in battle. The physical aging is more obvious, whether it is a serious injury or simply a loss of color as Wilfred Owen describes. What is more striking is the mental maturation almost every soldier undergoes from even just a small time in battle. Most young 18 year old recruits learn and experience more in their first few days of war than in their entire lives to that point. These experiences will also be their greatest test of character. Henry sudden and drastic emotional development in The Red Badge of Courage, in which the entire plot takes place within two days, is a prime example of how quickly many soldiers grow or mature on a battlefield. These same sentiments are voiced in All Quiet on the Western Front. As the narrator recounts, the war sweeps young recruits like him away and distorts their entire way of thinking. As he states young soldiers soon learn that the education they have been working for their whole life is worthless compared to simple physical skills of warfare. If a soldier survives a war, he returns home physically deteriorated, emotionally ragged, and with an entirely new set of values and priorities.

Such effects can only come from war. Soldiers experience the worst and the best of human nature. They suffer through appalling death and destruction yet also witness the strongest forms of camaraderie and courage. Such fantastic experiences are why so many writers and soldiers describe a dramatic aging during battle.

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Life, Nature, and Slumber

Wilfred Owen, the leading poet of World War I, wrote the poem “Futility” to describe his feeling of uselessness of the human being. After Owen’s time in rehabilitation, he was sent to a command depot in Ripon, England. There he wrote “Futility” describing his emotions to the war and life itself. The poem is summed up in his last like when he questions whether it is worth it “to break earth’s sleep at all.”

This passage signifies Owen’s use of sleep and nature with life and death.

            Nature is a constant image throughout the poem. We can identify this through Owen’s diction. He uses such words as seeds, stars, clay, sunbeams, fields, etc. These are used to describe how nature affects humans. The “king old sun” (Owen 7) is the center of energy that controls the things around it. The seeds and clay are the basic elements that make up nature. Although nature is a constant image, the speaker claims that nature is not the answer to life.

            The speaker asks the meaning of life. He calls to Nature or “the king old sun” but nature does not answer, but rather the speaker only repeats the question. This question supports Owen’s use of the concept of life and death. The speaker wonders whether he should live or not even “break earth’s sleep at all” (Owen 14) much like Hamlet’s query, when he wonders if it would be better to “dream.” We see how this concept of life and death relates to slumber throughout the poem. The speaker explains his time before war. At that time, he woke easily to the rise of the sun. Now, after being injured, he can’t find the desire to rise from sleep, but rather die. He is mad that the sun teased him into believing there was a meaning to life.

            Through Owen’s last line, the themes of “Futility” are expressed. It represents the use of nature, life, and slumber. They are used to set the mood of futility, the lack of usefulness. Basically, the speaker addresses that there is no meaning to life and we identify that nature is not connected to us as generally thought.

           

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The Sheer Necessity

“Just as we turn into animals when we go up to the line, because that is the only thing which brings us through safely, so we turn into wags and loafers when we are resting. We can do nothing else, it is a sheer necessity” (Remarque 138-39).

Throughout history, war has remained the same.  It is still portrayed in literature and media as violent and scarring.  In the passage above from the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul, the main character, describes the feelings and views on life that he and his fellow soldiers have because of the impact of war.  There is so much gore and violence that goes on in war that the soldiers in the book must do anything they can in order to disengage their mind from it.

In this book, Paul and his comrades must cope with actions they have witnessed throughout the war.  The soldiers are forced to block out the visuals by any means possible.  Paul describes their thoughts while they are fighting as animalistic, as if they have no emotion.  They could not focus on their actions or else their thoughts would be tainted with guilt of killing for the rest of their lives. If they allowed their emotions into their mind, then they would become flustered and unable to survive the horrors of war.  When the soldiers in the book were not fighting, they tried to get away from war and keep it out of their minds as much as they could. Paul continues on in the passage to list the dead and dying but then says that it has nothing to do with them now because they are living.  The soldiers in this book are not the only ones that have to cope with the problems of war.

Much like them, Henry, the main character in the Red Badge of Courage, is forced to deal with the gruesome reality of war.  In the beginning of the novel, Henry is unable to cope with the harshness of war because he sees all of the mangled bodies strayed on the ground.  He does not want to be one of them.  Because Henry let his emotions get in his way of fighting, he fled the battle.  But in the end, Henry was able to push aside his emotions and fight when “he himself felt the daring spirit of a savage…He had no time for dissections, but he knew that he thought of the bullets only as things that could prevent him from reaching the place of his endeavor” (Crane 127).

Henry, similar to the soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front, blocked most of his emotions from his mind in order to fight the war.  Most men in any war must eliminate their feelings. Without mental consciousness of their actions, a person is able gain the ability to be a soldier and have the strength to complete the necessary deeds of war.

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The Ripening Fruit

“Youth!  We are none of us more than twenty years old.  But young? Youth? That is long ago.  We are old folk.” (18)

 

Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier fighting in World War I amidst the horror of modern warfare.  Driven to enlist by their tyrannical teacher, Paul and his classmates join the war on the verge of adulthood, as soldiers filled “with eagerness and enthuisiasm” (22).   However, the young men’s view of war become jaded as they begin to experience war first hand, and learn the devastating reality of war. 

 

In this passage, Paul is responding to the title given to him and his fellow classmates by his teacher, Kantorek.  Kantorek calls the young men the “Iron Youth” mostly in attempts to persuade them to enlist in the war.  Convinced at first, the young soldiers soon discover the irony of that statement.  Paul realizes this irony saying, “Youth? That is long ago.  We are old folk” (18).  Paul believes that war has led him to mature beyond his eighteen years, and that his adolesence is now lost.  The reality of war; the death, destruction and desolation have shattered their innocence and destroyed their youth, causing them to become “old folk”.  Paul describes this loss of innocence saying, “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.  The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts…We believe in such things no longer, we believe in war” (88).  The brutality of combat, (“the first bomb”), has changed the young men forever, altered their view on life, causing them to lose their previous dreams of the future they had envisioned as youth, as now they only see the war.

 

This forced maturation of young soldiers can be seen in many other works depicting war.  For example, in the poem “Lament” by F.S. Flint, young men are portrayed as “ripening fruit”, who are “torn from their branches while the memory of their blossom is sweet in women’s hearts”.  The ripening fruit is used to describe the fact that the young soldiers have not matured entirely when they are sent to war.  They are “torn” from their “branches” before they have completely matured, and are taken from their youth before their time.  These young soldiers are forced into combat while the memory of their birth, or their “blossom” is still clear in their mother’s hearts.  Flint relates his belief that these young soldiers are forced to age while they are only beginning to “ripen” or to mature themselves at the normal pace.  Both Remarque and Flint, as well as countless others believed that war destroyed the lives of many young soldiers, who were forced into adulthood when their adolesence is shattered by their horrifying experiences in war. 

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