By Chapter Twelve of All Quiet on the Western
Front, Paul Baumer is disillusioned with his role in life and the role of his
life as it used to be. All his adult life he has been entrenched in a war that
has basically consumed everything about the world as he knew it and destroyed
his perception of what everyone else would see as a normal and functioning
society. As seen in the chapter where he visits home, Paul actually misses the
battlefield when he is gone. He can no longer function under the normal pressures
of society as his body has gotten used to being in high pressure situations all
the time.
“Everyone
talks of peace and armistice. All wait. If it again proves an illusion, then
they will break up; hope is high, it cannot be taken away again without
upheaval. If there is not peace, then there will be revolution.” (Chapter 12, All Quiet on the Western Front)
And even though he’d miss the battlefield, it has grown old. Watching people
die and living in constant fear that he could be the next to go.
“It cannot be
that it has gone, the yearning that made our blood unquiet, the unknown, the
perplexing, the oncoming things, the thousand faces of the future, the melodies
from dreams and from books, the whispers and divinations of women; it cannot be
that this has vanished in bombardment, in despair, in brothels.” (Chapter 12, All Quiet on the Western Front)
It is possible though, that he still believes in the innocence of youth. That
even though his classmates and other soldiers his age and younger have had to
live and die on the battlefield, they still contain traces of the young men
that they were. Hope for the future and hope of a future love still being held
close to their hearts.
“There are
not many of the old hands left. I am the last of the seven fellows from our
class.” (Chapter 12, All Quiet on the Western Front)
He is the last surviving character that was introduced at the beginning of the
novel, which makes sense he being the narrator and all. Of course that all
changes on the backside of the last page when we learn he died on the quietest
day of the year in what is possibly the least descript death of a main
character ever. What killed him? A sniper? Too much gas inhalation? A ninja?
Maybe even a bee sting? It is unlikely however, that it was as is shown in the
movie. There were no birds or drawings involved.
Amanda Goedeke
Mackenzie Branch
James Kreiman
Jake Mueller
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