Character Analysis: All Quiet On The Western Front

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“If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army...”-Robert Galbraith. Fighting in the army for many years, can really bring people closer together, the unconditional love and bond that is made is hard to break in the long run. Many times, a soldier will befriend a soldier from the opposition, treating him as equals. The selfless act that this soldier has done can say a thousand words, it shows that inside the soldiers the sides they fight on do not matter at all, what matters is the survival of their comrades, their friends. Many forms of literature, poetry, and art have shown the beauty of these bonds and the amazing extents soldiers go to to keep their brothers happy. Author Erich Maria Remarque of All Quiet on the…show more content…
In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, the main character Paul Baumer was stuck with a soldier from the opposing side. Instead of killing him like any other German soldier would he told the man, “Forgive me comrade; how could you be my enemy?”(Remarque 223). Paul did not shoot or insult the soldier, but he pitied him and apologized to him he showed his love to the man by pleading for him to take pity on him and forgive him. Paul knew the soldier could kill him as well but he called him his comrade, and immediately accepted him as his own friend not taking into account the side he is fighting on. Similarly, in the poem “The Man He killed”, the author places the question of having opposition into mind. He writes, “You shoot a fellow down / you’d treat, if met where any bar is,” (Hardy). Hardy had just pointed out that the soldiers who fight in the army, are all alike, they could be the people everyone talks and makes friends with at the bar and the same people could be the ones soldiers are trying to kill on the battlefield. In the novel and in the poem, the authors are trying to point out that the idea of an opposition is just a distinction because in reality they are the same people who drink in a bar or walk in the park, there is no difference. Instead, we should put aside the distinction of enemy and put in the name of

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