German Literature Essay Example For Students

German Literature Essay The Problem of Language in All Quiet on the Western FrontFor it is no easy undertaking, I say,to describe the bottom of the Universe;nor is it for tongues that only babble childs play. (The Inferno, XXXII, 7-9.)Erich Maria Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front, a novelset in World War I, centers around the changes wrought by the war on oneyoung German soldier. During his time in the war, Remarques protagonist,Paul Baumer, changes from a rather innocent Romantic to a hardened andsomewhat caustic veteran. More importantly, during the course of thismetamorphosis, Baumer disaffiliates himself from those societaliconsparents, elders, school, religionthat had been the foundation ofhis pre-enlistment days. This rejection comes about as a result ofBaumers realization that the pre-enlistment society simply does notunderstand the reality of the Great War. His new society, then, becomesthe Company, his fellow trench soldiers, because that is a group which doesunderstand the truth as Baumer has experienced it. Remarque demonstrates Baumers disaffiliation from thetraditional by emphasizing the language of Baumers pre- andpost-enlistment societies. Baumer either can not, or chooses not to,communicate truthfully with those representatives of his pre-enlistment andinnocent days. Further, he is repulsed by the banal and meaninglesslanguage that is used by members of that society. As he becomes alienatedfrom his former, traditional, society, Baumer simultaneously is able tocommunicate effectively only with his military comrades. Since the novelis told from the first person point of view, the reader can see how thewords Baumer speaks are at variance with his true feelings. In his prefaceto the novel, Remarque maintains that a generation of men weredestroyed by the war (Remarque, All Quiet Preface). Indeed, in All Quieton the Western Front, the meaning of language itself is, to a great extent,destroyed. Early in the novel, Baumer notes how his elders had been facilewith words prior to his enlistment. Specifically, teachers and parents hadused words, passionately at times, to persuade him and other young men toenlist in the war effort. After relating the tale of a teacher whoexhorted his students to enlist, Baumer states that teachers always carrytheir feelings ready in their waistcoat pockets, and trot them out by thehour (Remarque, All Quiet I. 15). Baumer admits that he, and others, werefooled by this rhetorical trickery. Parents, too, were not averse to usingwords to shame their sons into enlisting. At that time even ones parentswere ready with the word coward' (Remarque, All Quiet I. 15). Remembering those days, Baumer asserts that, as a result of his warexperiences, he has learned how shallow the use of these words was. Indeed, early in his enlistment, Baumer comprehends that although authorityfigurestaught that duty to ones country is the greatestthing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that, we were no mutineers, no deserters,no cowardsthey were very free with these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we wentcourageously into every action; but also wedistinguished the false from true, we had suddenlylearned to see. (Remarque, All Quiet I. 17)What Baumer and his comrades have learned is that the words and expressionsused by the pillars of society do not reflect the reality of war and ofones participation in it. As the novel progresses, Baumer himself useswords in a similarly false fashion. A number of instances of Baumers own misuse of language occurduring an important episode in the novela period of leave when he visitshis home town. This leave is disastrous for Baumer because he realizesthat he can not communicate with the people on the home front because ofhis military experiences and their limited, or nonexistent, understandingof the war. When he first enters his house, for example, Baumer isoverwhelmed at being home. His joy and relief are such that he cannotspeak; he can only weep (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 140). When he and hismother greet each other, he realizes immediately that he has nothing to sayto her: We say very little and I am thankful that she asks nothing(Remarque, All Quiet VII. 141). But finally she does speak to him andasks, Was it very bad out there, Paul?' (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 143). Here, when he answers, he lies, ostensibly to protect her from hearing ofthe chaotic conditions from which he has just returned. He thinks tohimself,Mother, what should I answer to that! You wouldnot understand, you could never realize it. And younever shall realize it. Was it bad, you ask.You,Mother,I shake my head and say: No, Mother, notso very. There are always a lot of us together so itisnt so bad.(Remarque, All Quiet VII. 143)Even in trying to protect her, by using words that are false, Baumercreates a separation between his mother and himself. Clearly, as Baumersees it, such knowledge is not for the uninitiated. On another level,however, Baumer cannot respond to his mothers question: he understandsthat the experiences he has had are so overwhelming that a civilianlanguage, or any language at all, would be ineffective in describing them. Trying to replicate the experience and horrors of the war via words isimpossible, Baumer realizes, and so he lies. Any attempt at telling thetruth would, in fact, trivialize its reality. During the course of his leave, Baumer also sees his father. The fact that he does not wish to speak with his parent (i.e., use few orno words at all) shows Baumers movement away from the traditionalinstitution of the family. Baumer reports that his father is curiousabout the war in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I no longerhave any real contact with him (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 146). Inconsidering the demands of his father to discuss the war, Baumer, onceagain, realizes the impossibility, and, in this case, even the danger, oftrying to relate the reality of the war via language. There is nothing he likes more than just hearingabout it. I realize he does not know that a mancannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly,but it is too dangerous for me to put these thingsinto words. I am afraid they might then becomegigantic and I be no longer able to master them. (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 146)Again, Baumer notes the impossibility of making the experience of warmeaningful within a verbal context: the war is too big, the wordsdescribing it would have to be correspondingly immense and, with theirsymbolic size, might become uncontrollable and, hence, meaningless. Sir Gawain And The Green Knight EssayThe scene is a simple one. After Baumer and Katczinsky havestolen a goose, in a small deserted lean-to they eat it together. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I,two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose inthe middle of the night. We dont talk much, butI believe we have a more complete communion withone another than even lovers have The greasedrips from our hands, in our hearts we are closeto one another we sit with a goose between usand feel in unison, are so intimate that we donot even speak. (Remarque, All Quiet V. 87)These elemental and primitive activities of getting and then eating foodbring about a communion, a feeling in unison, between the two men thatclearly cannot be found in theword-heavy environment of Baumers home town. Perhaps Remarque wants tomake the point that true communication can occur only in action, or insilence, or almost accidentally. At any rate, Baumer demonstrates towardthe end of his life that even he is not immune from verbal duplicity of akind that was used on him to get him to enlist. Soon after he hears the comforting words of his comrades (seeabove), Baumer is caught in another shell hole during the bombardment. Here, he is forced to kill a Frenchman who jumps into it while attackingthe German lines. Baumer is horrified at his action. He notes, This isthe first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand,whose death is my doing (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 193). That is, the war,and his part in it, have become much more personalized because now he canactually see the face of his enemy. In his grief, Baumer takes the deadmans pocket-book from him so that he can find out the deceaseds name andfamily situation. Realizing that the man he killed is no monster, that, infact, he had a family, and is evidently very much like himself, Baumerbegins to make promises to the corpse. He indicates that he will write tohis family and goes so far as to promise the corpse that he, Baumer, willtake his place on earth: I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval. Imust be a printer' (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 197). More importantly,Baumer renounces his status as soldier by apologizing to the corpse for killing him. Comrade, I did not want to kill you You wereonly an idea to me before, an abstraction that livedin my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed Forgive me,comrade. We always see it too late. Why do theynever tell us that you are poor devils like us, thatyour mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that wehave the same fear of death, and the same dying andthe same agonyForgive me, comrade; how could yoube my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and thisuniform you could be my brother just like Kat (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 195)In addition to the obvious brotherhood of nations sentiment that appears inBaumers eulogy, it is interesting to note that Baumer sees that Duvalcould have been even closerlike Katczinsky, a member of Baumers innercircle of Second Company. All of the sentiments, all of the words, that Baumerarticulates to Duval are admirable, but they are absolutely false. As time passes, as he spends more time with the corpse of Duvalin the shell-hole, Baumer realizes that he will not fulfill the variouspromises he has made. He cannot write to Duvals family; it would bebeyond impropriety to do so. Moreover, Baumer renounces his brotherhoodsentiments: Today you, tomorrow me (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 197). Soon,Baumer admits, I think no more of the dead man, he is of no consequence tome now (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 198). And later, to hedge his bets incase there happens to be justice in the universe, Baumer states, Nowmerely to avert any ill-luck, I babble mechanically: I will fulfilleverything, fulfill everything I have promised you butalready I know that I shall not do so (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 198). Remarques point in this episode is clear: no one is exemptfrom the perversion of language vis-a-vis the war. Even Paul Baumer, whohad been disgusted by the meaninglessness of language as demonstrated inhis home town, himself uses words and language that are meaningless. Oncehe is reunited with his comrades after the shell hole episode, Baumeradmits it was mere drivelling nonsense that I talked out there in theshell-hole (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 199). Why does Baumer do it? Whydoes he employ the same types of vacuous words and sentiments that hiselders and teachers had used and for which he has no respect? It was onlybecause I had to lie One assumes that this double meaning is apparent onlyin English. there with him so long After all, war is war (Remarque,All Quiet IX. 200). Ultimately, that is all that Paul Baumer and the reader areleft with: war is war. It cannot be defined; it cannot even be discussedwith any accuracy. It has no sense and, in fact, is the embodiment of alack of any kind of meaning. In All Quiet on the Western Front, ErichMaria Remarque shows the disorder created by the war. This disorderaffects such elemental societal institutions as the family, the schools,and the church. Moreover, the war is so chaotic that it infects the basicabilities, not the least of which is verbal, of humanity itself. Byshowing how the First World War deleteriously affects the syntax oflanguage, Remarque is able to demonstrate how the war irreparably altersthe order of the world itself. WORK CITEDRemarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books, 1984. 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