The Soldier’s Lost of Innocence in the Novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and in the Poem Arms and the Boy by Wilfred Owen
On the battlefield, innocence is lost and men are transformed; yet all soldiers go through a three-step transformation that turns them into better soldiers, but worse men as well. In the novel “ All Quiet On The Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque, and in many war-time poems, a transformation among men is noticeable in which they lose innocence, become beasts and most importantly, they abandon all civilized sensibilities. The moment a soldier leaves his everyday known life to go into the unknown world, he is exposed to the darkness and tragedies war has to offer. When this happens, loss of innocence is expected The first example of this occurring is when Paul realizes how wonderful it would be to be a child again. “Am I crying? I put my hand to my eyes, it is fantastic; am I a child?”. In this quote iris evident that it is almost a treat for Paul to be crying because he is so deprived of feelings because it is the only way for him to survive.
Paul also connects crying with being a child, which shows his connection between being innocent and youthful. In the Poem “Arms and The Boy” by Wilfred Owen with the connection between being youthful and innocent is clear when a child is being introduced to weapons When the narrator of the story says; “Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade. How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of bloods” he is hoping that this bayonet-blade will discard the innocence of the boy and replace it with a “hunger of blood". This consciousness of sorts in Wilfred Owens’s poem is convincing the boy who innocence isn‘t needed as long as he has weapons, which will turn him into the man he needs to be and no longer a child. Once a soldier’s innocence is lost, he comes to notice he is less a man and more a beast, and the next transformation occurs.
Due to their raw and emotionless state of being, soldiers’ turns to making others suffer in turn by themselves suffering as individuals. This makes them want nothing but to kill and have a hunger for blood, much like most savage animals do, In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, the hunger for death is mentioned; “My limbs move supplely, l feeling joints strong, I breathe the air deeplyr The night lives, 1 live I feel a hunger, greater than comes from the belly alone”. In this quote Paul describes a feeling that is greater than normal hunger, one that cannot be satisfied by eating, but rather one that can be satisfied by killing The descriptions are more animalistic than human as Paul describes himself as a supple, strong jointed beast in the nightr Men are seen as animals in Wilfred Owens’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” when men are described as cattle, “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle".
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Soldiers are described as cattle, for they are overworked and underfed animals, The definition of cattle plays into groups of soldiers, as they are “domesticated bovine animals as a group, regardless of sex or age“ (WolframAlpha). The last step in a soldier’s brutal war life occurs when all emotional and physical connections are lost and all the animals in men see anymore are enemies. When a soldier is deprived of necessities as well as emotional needs such as feelings, abandonment of civilized sensibilities is expected to follow. Paul comes to realize that others still have feelings for the dead while he does not, and becomes bothered with it; “When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over a single individual”.
This quote truly shows how much distress it brings to Paul to know that other people do still have feelings for other individuals due to an emotional connection that he can no longer relate to When soldiers no longer feel for the dead, they are shooting without reason, which relates to the theme of the quote in Thomas Hardy‘s “The Man He Killed‘l “I shot him dead because ., because he was my foe." This is an example of a soldier simply shooting because he is told to, and he has lost all say for himself and is controlled by others.
Civilized sensibilities make men reason with shooting a man, but without them, shooting a man has been just another task that one is being told to complete Soldiers are following in the paths of their ancestors, even in modern day war as they march into the lifestyle of insanity or death if they are one of the lucky few. In Erich Maria Remarque‘s novel “All Quiet on the Western Front" and in multiple wartime poems, the reality and horrors that many soldiers live on a regular day basis are developed through the paths that men go through in a war year after year.
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The Soldier’s Lost of Innocence in the Novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and in the Poem Arms and the Boy by Wilfred Owen. (2023, Apr 25). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/the-soldiers-lost-of-innocence-in-the-novel-all-quiet-on-the-western-front-by-erich-maria-remarque-and-in-the-poem-arms-and-the-boy-by-wilfred-owen/
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