I've been pondering a theme discussed last week, that is, the loss of innocence of a generation, and couldn’t help but find the presence of a similar sentiment on nigh every page of All Quiet on the Western Front.  Within the first few pages of the novel the protagonist, Paul, discusses the way that his entire class was persuaded to enlist by their high-school teacher, Kantorek, and he concludes with an accusation:  “And that is why they let us down so badly.  For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress—to the future.  We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them” (12).

This theme persists throughout the novel, and I found it quite striking that Remarque does not seem at all interested in maintaining any of the “glory” or “glamour” for the soldier’s experience that Vera Brittain at times holds.  I found it rather heartbreaking that, after Paul and two of his friends have undertaken a night of sexual activity with three French women whom they do not know and are unable to converse much with, instead of reveling in the experience as his fellows do, Paul simply confesses: “I cannot trust myself to speak, I am not in the least happy” (151).  He later agonizes, questions whether having seen and done such things has not ruined him completely for any of the normal, sweeter experiences of life.  This event is reflected upon once more when, during his leave, Paul’s mother warns him against consorting with French women.  In response to the discrepancy between this careful warning and the reality of Paul’s experience, he laments his lost innocence, internally crying: “Ah!  Mother, Mother!  You still think I am a child—why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? […] I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child…why is it over?” (183).

Paul’s inability to recover to his innocence even upon returning home on leave is particularly distressing, for as he is sitting in his old room, looking over the books he once painstakingly collected, he reflects to himself: “I want to think myself back into that time” (170).  As Paul waits, hoping that the great love he once felt for his books might inspire in him some absent former-feeling, he implores that they “fill me again, melt the heavy, dead lump of lead that lies somewhere in me and waken again the impatience of the future, the quick joy in the world of thought, it shall bring back the lost eagerness of my youth” (171).  However, although Paul tries desperately to regain this sense of connection and “home-coming” to his room and his surroundings, he is unable to do so.  “I wait, I wait”, Paul writes, while “Images float through my mind, but they do not grip me, they are mere shadows and memories” (172).  And in the end “A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me.  I cannot find my way back, I am shut out though I entreat earnestly and put forth all my strength” (172).

Finally, although All Quiet on the Western Front is a work of fiction, the precise detail of the text reminded me greatly of Brittain’s, to the point that I felt sure Remarque must also have had first-hand experience of that which he writes.  I did a bit of searching and was not surprised discover that Remarque participated in WWI himself beginning at the age of 18, and was wounded a total of five times throughout.  I of course thought of the main character of All Quiet upon reading this, because Paul is injured, allowed leave to recover, and then immediately ordered to return once more to the front lines.  Indeed, Remarque’s middle name was “Paul” before he changed it to “Maria” in remembrance of his mother, and so it seems that All Quiet on the Western Front is likely in some ways a testament of his own youth.  I find the implications for this information quite fascinating, especially considering Paul’s death on what was likely one of the final days of the war. Our Paul, old beyond his days and yet still young in age, has experienced such horror that, we are told, to look at his peaceful body one might think he was “almost glad the end had come” (296).  Of course, this ending simultaneously gives rest to Paul while making clear that there is no redemption story in war—all is tragedy and senselessness.  In fact, while considering the theme of loss of innocence throughout the work, I couldn’t help but wonder about the potential significance of this ending for the writer, Erich Maria (Paul) Remarque, whose own youth, perhaps, was also left dead on the battlefield at the close of the war.