Paul And His Friends example essay topic

"All Quiet in the Western Front" In the movie, "All Quiet in the Western Front", Paul is an average eighteen-year-old male who enlists in the Army and is sent to fight in WWI, which changes his views and makes him an adult. Everybody in Paul's hometown is supportive of Paul and his peers enlisting think it is a great opportunity to be able to fight in the war. At basic training, they are shown what military life is like from their drill sergeant who treats him and his friends incredibly rough. Paul returns home, he has a totally different outlook on life and his earlier life style. Paul and twenty of his classmates enlisted in the Army to go fight in WWI. Paul was then very close to his family and friends.

One of his high school teachers encouraged war and told all the boys that they were very lucky to have a chance to defend their country. Due to the Pox Britannica, most European governments were very inexperienced with fighting and were not prepared to fight in a twentieth century war. Therefore, Paul and his friends went to basic training to learn to fight the best they could from inexperienced superiors. They learned some valuable skills while in training, but Paul's drill instructors (especially Himmelsdorf) treated the soldiers sadistically. During the sixteen days Paul was on leave, he went home and his attitude and views about civilian life had changed. Paul said how his "family" was on the front line and how he didn't look at his mother as family anymore, even though he had been really close to her.

Paul also lied to his friend's mother about how her son had died. He told her that her son died without pain and suffering, but he actually had a slow death, including the amputation of one of his legs. Paul never told her about the amputated leg. Paul then went back to visit his high school teacher who had encouraged him to enlist. The teacher told him that he was still proud of him even though the death rate was high. The teacher still encouraged war.

Paul's attitude changed about going back to war. The things that Paul had to do, like protecting a mother from knowing her son's cause of death were very apparent in that time period, and very common as well with men in Paul's situation. Paul's officers, family, friends, teachers and his front line "family", influenced his life and all of the decisions that Paul made. Without these people, and their kind pressures, Paul would have never enlisted and experienced the fear and the thrill of war. Finally, Paul made a foolish decision when he turned around and started drawing a bird that was behind him during the battle, and the enemy shot him in the head and killed him.