In the beginning, Paul and his friends had been rallied by their schoolmaster, Kantorek, and he started out as an enthusiastic, care-free student excited about life. He was convinced about how glorious and patriotic to his country it would be for him to enlist in the army and fight. Once he'd been in the war for a while, however, he soon realizes that not much matters but survival. He learns to use the Earth to protect himself, learns the patterns of the various shells and the correct timing to leap from shell hole to shell hole. The war consumes him, taking away his youth and maturing him to an old man at only the young age of twenty. When he returns to his hometown, he cannot even relate to the ordinary life of his mother, sister, and others in the life of a small town. The citizens have a routine to their lives, whereas his life is chaos and is almost entirely unpredictable. Unfortunately, he would never get over this. What had originally been an exciting adventure to embark upon, turned his life into a nightmare he's inevitably unable to wake up from.
Paul Before the war, listening to Kantorek preach about the glories of war.
He had to endure watching the deaths of all of his friends, including Kemmerich.
As most soldiers find, they are unable to become accustomed to the ways of normal civilians again. Here Paul is with his sister and ill mother.
“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.” ― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
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