Dehumanization in All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

In All Quiet on the Western Front by Enrique Maria Remarque, the endorser follows Paul Baumer as he stir ups through World War I and discovers the trials of being a soldier. As they survive through the war with each other(a), Paul and the other soldiers began to understand certain realities of life. Going into the field of study teenagers, the soldiers come out as old men, burdened with their experiences. The war, meant to glorify Germany and turn its men into heroes, deadens and dehumanizes Paul and the other soldiers until they cant recognize themselves. As soldiers, Paul and his friends atomic number 18 treated with comminuted care.Their superiors act as if they are animals, replaceable and expendable because there are so many of them, and they hold so little power by themselves. Although tho teenagers, these soldiers have had to grow up quickly in order to fight for their apparently insignificant lives. It is said that they are the Iron Youth (21). By describing the soldie rs as Iron, Paul expresses how such(prenominal) the war has changed them. Iron, which can be interpreted both literally and figuratively, is a strong metal that covers a lot of the Earth as well as residing in its core.Therefore, with the soldiers described as iron, they are referred to as replaceable, expendable, and abundant in numbers. Also, iron can be used to describe some 1 who is determined, tough, and strong, masking how much these 19 year old soldiers have had to grow up in order to stick by alive in the war. They lost their childhood, aging into old men because of the devastation and experiences theyve encountered. And slowly, as their childhood goes, their generosity and liveliness leaves as well.The more the soldiers are treated like cattle, disposable and soulless, the faster they regress. Remarque often uses woman chaser imagery to describe the soldiers at war, showing their relapse into animals while on the battlefield. We have become incorrect beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what we do know of men in this moment in which death is hunting us down we can destroy and kill, to bring through ourselves, to save ourselves and be revenged (73).By using beast imagery, Remarque shows how the emotions of he soldiers are stripped away until they are only left with the instinct to do anything to stay alive. They fight not against other men, but other beasts as well, for deep down, all soldiers are the same, fighting for their comrades and for themselves instead of for their country. Just as men do beasts, final stage hunts the soldiers on the battlefield, chasing after them as they become animals replaceable, expendable, and superfluous. part the private soldier is extraneous, many men experience up the armies that fight wars.Most often, Remarque describes how these many soldiers change mentally because of the war by describing how these men physically come together to form a fighting company, Remarque shows just how much the war has changed them. Farther on, the overcloud ends. Here the heads become figures coats, trousers, and boots appear out of mist as from a milky pool. They become a column. individuals are no longer recognizable. a column not men at all (57). The column that Remarque uses to describe the soldiers shows how they are the support that holds the military up.Without the columns of soldiers, the lieutenants, generals, and other leaders in the soldiers would be insignificant because they would have no inferiors and not enough men to fight a war. The individual soldier is irrelevant, too. He has no power on his own, because men do not fight wars. Armies do. When one soldier falls, another takes his place without second thought, as if an automaton or a well-trained dog. They follow orders without questions, and at long last the soldier can no longer comprehend the man he used to be originally the war, because they have lost all personality and individuality.They have become blank, same, and dehumanized, more beastly with every daylight at the front. By the end of the war, the soldiers that returned to Germany are unrecognizable. They have fought like animals, run from Death, and seen so many horrors. While they went to war to be heroes, to fight for their country, the soldiers came back broken and empty, only shells of their former selves. They have regressed slowly, losing the will to live, and ever-changing until they cant recognize themselves.