All Quiet on the Western Front

 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a war novel and tells the story of World War I through the eyes of a German soldier named Paul Baumer. The narrator describes in detail all the horrors of trench warfare and the changes that he undergoes as a person. Paul's view on war changes slightly in every chapter. At first, he seems accepting of death and observes that when on the front the soldiers are less human and rely more on "animal instincts". Later on Paul questions what his purpose in life might be after the war, because war has changed him so much and his memories before the war begin to fade. As death occurs more often around him, Paul seems to become more compassionate about others. In chapter 8, Paul sees the Russian prisoners and wonders how men so similar to him  can be his enemy, and he feels sorry for them and gives him the food his mother sent him. In chapter 9 Paul shows even more compassion when he bandages an enemy soldier after stabbing him. In the end, after losing all of his friends to the war, Paul finally dies with a peaceful expression on his face, as if he were"almost glad the end had come”


 I found a lot of the dialogue in the book to be interesting and  most effective in illustrating the narrator's character development. "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. . . . I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade." This quote by Paul shows how although the war has been brutal and he has seen many of his fellow men killed and injured, he can also show compassion towards his enemies, who he feels he doesn't know well enough personally to be enemies with to begin with. Paul's dialogue with the dying French soldier shows that he feels sympathetic and guilty about killing men he doesn't know.