Antonyan 1 Arman Antonyan Mrs. McGrath 10th Grade English Honors, Period 2 28 April 2015 A Generation Destroyed World War I left millions dead, and many millions more aimless, in despair, and incapable of adjusting to postwar society. These aimless millions are often referred to as the “Lost Generation” (Lost Generation). The term originated from Gertrude Stein in a dialogue with Nobel Prize­winning Ernest Hemingway, the two being among the most distinguished writers in American literature. Stein told Hemingway, “That is what you are. That's what you all are ... all of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation” (Hemingway 61­62). From this generation came renowned authors such as Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Hemingway himself. The authors and their literature were “characterised by doomed youth, hedonism, uncompromising creativity, and wounded—both literally and metaphorically—by the experience of war” (The “Lost Generation”). One such author, Erich Maria Remarque, wrote ​
All Quiet on the Western Front​
, a novel describing the experiences of fictional German soldier Paul Bäumer during World War I. Paul’s regiment goes through one horrifying experience after another, and Paul’s friends begin to die one by one. At the end of the book, right before the war was to end, Bäumer himself dies. The war brought a heavy toll upon the men not only in their numbers, but also in terms of their morale, individuality, and humanity. Through the experiences of Paul Bäumer and his regiment, Erich Maria Remarque in ​
All Quiet on the Western Front​
shows readers just how skeptical and detached from the rest of society the “Lost Generation” became during World War I. Antonyan 2 The young soldiers of ​
All Quiet on the Western Front​
became “lost” after losing their future and their individuality, one of the biggest problems the Lost Generation faced. Bäumer and his classmates enlisted in the German army after the many patriotic lectures of their schoolteacher, Kantorek. They romanticized war in their minds, and their minds were young and excited to fight (21). However, they soon discovered that fighting for their countries was not nearly as glorious as Kantorek made it seem. In their brutal drill camp they learned that to support their country, they had to abandon their individual personalities. “With our young, awakened eyes we saw that the classical conception of the Fatherland held by our teachers resolved itself here into a renunciation of personality such as one would not ask of the meanest servants” (22). The boys ended up cut off from their previous lives, because there was not much there to begin with. He contrasts this experience of his generation to that of the older soldiers. “[The older soldiers] have wives, children, occupations, and interests, they have a background which is so strong that the war cannot obliterate it. We young men of twenty however, have only our parents, and some, perhaps, a girl … Beyond this our life did not extend. And of this nothing remains” (20). These youthful students are therefore what the term “Lost Generation” refers to (Wagener 13). At one point in the book, one of the boys, Müller, began to interrogate the others as to what they would do if peace suddenly came (76). None of the younger generation was sure as to what they would do. The younger generation feared the future, because all they knew was war. “We are all utterly at a loss. ‘What could we do [in the future]?’ I[Paul] ask” (87). The boys realized how universal their sentiments were. “We agree that it’s the same for everyone; not only for us here, but everywhere, for everyone who is of our age; to some more, and to others less. It is the common fate of our generation” (87). Erich Maria Remarque used the boys’ sentiments to Antonyan 3 foreshadow the difficulty of transitioning after the war for its veterans, which gave meaning to the term “Lost Generation.” Paul Bäumer was incapable of adjusting to civilian life after being at war, a common feature of the Lost Generation. After a long period on duty, he was given seventeen days leave. He came to his hometown and visited his home, but things did not feel like they used to. While at rest, he tried to reassure himself that he was at home, but it was no use. He was disconnected from his former life. Paul complains, “...a sense of strangeness will not leave. I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there my sister … but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a veil between us” (160). As he walked the streets of his hometown, he was repeatedly startled by the tramcars, thinking they were shells (165). Paul lacked the ability to communicate with civilians. They did not understand him, and he did not understand them. “They are different men here, men I cannot properly understand” (169). He visited his room in an attempt to bring back his old self, but it was simply not the same. He opens book after book, magazine after magazine, and the old magic he felt while reading was no longer existent. “Words, Words, Words­­­ they do not reach me” (173). The days passed by, and he decided to visit his fallen friend’s mother to inform her of his death. She weeped and weeped, and would not stop interrogating him as to the nature of his death. He quickly became annoyed by her distress, thinking “When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over a single individual” (181). He was desensitized to suffering and grief, and lost much of his compassion. Paul Bäumer’s failure to be satisfied at home demonstrated just how isolated troops became from society as a result of World War I. Antonyan 4 The youth of Paul’s regiment became disillusioned with and skeptical of authority and nationalism as the story progressed, which were sentiments the Lost Generation held in common. It was authority in the form of their schoolteacher Kantorek that brought them to the horrors of this war, for example. “The idea of authority, which [people like Kantorek] represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief” (12). As a result, the authority figures in the book were usually mocked and despised by the boys. Kantorek was a running joke between the kids. Their drill instructor Himmelstoss gave them brutal treatment in training camp. Paul tells the reader, “I have stood at attention in a hard frost without gloves for a quarter of an hour at a stretch, while Himmelstoss watched for the slightest movement of our bare fingers on the steel barrel of the rifle” (24). While watching Russians in a prison camp, Paul began to question the nationalist ideology that he was raised on and that brought him into the war. He saw that they did not seem so different from his own people. They looked “just as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland,” thought Paul (190). Paul came to the realization that the supposed distinctions between him and the Russians were arbitrary, and that they were not so different: “A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends. At some table a document is signed by some persons whom none of us knows, and then for years together that very crime on which formerly the world’s condemnation and severest penalty fall, becomes our highest aim … Any non­commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, than they are to us.” (194) Antonyan 5 Later, Paul is out scouting on the front lines and is forced to stab a French soldier near him (216). Paul is unable to relocate himself due to heavy fire from the trenches, and so before his eyes the Frenchman dies a slow and painful death. As Paul watches the man struggle, he feels guilty and tries to help the man. Paul tells him “I want to help you Comrade, camerade, camerade”, desperate for a response (220). It was his first close up killing of a man. The sight of the Frenchman put a human face on the enemies he had been relentlessly fighting, forcing him to feel regret. In this state of regret he lamented his murder: “If only he had run two yards farther to the left, he might now be sitting in the trench over there and writing a fresh letter to his wife” (222). Paul Bäumer and his regiment exemplify the Lost Generation in their anti­nationalistic and anti­authoritarian sentiments. The events of World War I left an entire generation in disrepair. Almost predictably, Lost Generation writers were “most famous for their dismal perceptions of the world” (Davis). They rebelled against the cruel world that brought them into their condition. In fact, some of the key American writers of Lost Generation emigrated to Paris in search for a more free and lively lifestyle, such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Davis). ​
All Quiet on the Western Front ​
was written to give the reader insight on Remarque’s Lost Generation, and was part of the revolt against the social order found in much Lost Generation literature (Bloom 64). Antonyan 6 Works Cited Bloom, Harold. ​
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on The Western Front​
. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2001. Print. Davis, David A. "Lost Generation." ​
Mercer University​
. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. Hemingway, Ernest, Séan A. Hemingway, and Patrick Hemingway. A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition​
. New York, NY: Scribner, 2009. Print. "Lost Generation | American Literature." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Aug. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. Remarque, Erich Maria. ​
All Quiet on the Western Front​
. Trans. A. W. Wheen. New York: Ballantine, 1984. Print. "The "Lost Generation"" The British Library. The British Library Board, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. Wagener, Hans. "All Quiet on the Western Front." ​
Understanding Erich Maria Remarque​
. Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina, 1991. 9­36. Print.