Importance of Life Revealed in Erich Maria Remarques All...

Importance of Life Revealed in Erich Maria Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarques classic war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, deals with the many ways in which World War I affected peoples lives, both the lives of soldiers on the front lines and the lives of people on the homefront. One of the most profound effects the war had was the way it made the soldiers see human life. Constant killing and death became a part of a soldiers daily life, and soldiers fighting on all sides of the war became accustomed to it. The atrocities and frequent deaths that the soldiers dealt with desensitized them to the reality of the vast quantities of people dying daily. The title character of the novel, Paul†¦show more content†¦We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when death is hunting us down (113). Bà ¤umer also sees that the wars effects on people makes them seem physically less than human; he explains A man cannot realize that above su ch shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round (263). Paul accurately sums up the wars most powerful effect in one simple sentence, Our knowledge of life is limited to death (264). The war not only makes the lives of the dead less valuable; it makes those who survive have a different, more seize the day, outlook on their own lives. The deaths of friends and acquaintances in the war makes those who survive place more value on their own lives. After Kemmerichs death, Bà ¤umer feels a new-found vigor for his own life, I breathe the air deeply. The night lives, I live. I feel a hunger, greater than comes from the belly alone (33). Because of the vast amount of death and destruction, Bà ¤umer and his fellow surviving comrades have to take things as lightly as we can, so we make the most of every opportunity (232). Bà ¤umer sees the value of his own life and is cognoscente of how important it is to survive, no matter what it entails. We lie under the network of arching shells and live in a suspense of uncertainty, says Baumer, It is...a matter of chance that I am