All Quiet on the Western Front

The novel All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, should be a must-read book because it allows people to question their morality, shows how dramatic events can change someone’s personality, and teaches people how to adapt to upsetting situations.

            The novel All Quiet on the Western Front, allows people to question their morality.  Right after a close encounter with the enemy, Kat, Paul’s closest friend in the army, struggles with the morality of life and death.  At the beginning of the book, Paul, along with hundreds of other men of all ages, are sent off to war.  When a man was admitted into the army, his job was to destroy the enemy before they had the chance to do the same to him.  The idea of ending a human life did not seem relevant to them until they encountered their first battle.  During this battle, several men were wounded on both sides, including a newly declared soldier who was promised by Paul that he wouldn’t get hurt.  After the battle, the boy is found by Paul and Kat and was hardly surviving.  The idea of morality does no affect them until this point.  Before anyone else shows up, “Kat looks at his revolver and whispers” to Paul, saying, “Shouldn’t we just take a revolver and put an end to it…the youngster will hardly survive the carrying.” In response, “[Paul] nod[s]” and says to him, “Yes, Kat, we ought to put him out of his misery” (Remarque 76).  The idea of killing another human being makes Kat so nervous that he has to “whisper” his idea to Paul.  He realizes that his “revolver” will not only kill a person, but a bit of his judgment that discerns what is right and wrong.   Kat needs to “put an end” to both the suffering boy and his ethics on human life.  He has to refer to the dying soldier as “it” as a coping mechanism for what he is about to do.  After all, he does say the “youngster” does not have a chance of “surviv[ing]” anyway.  Kat’s ideas seem so reasonable at the time that his friend, Paul, decides that they “ought” to stop the pain, as if it is their obligation to do so.  Unlike Kat, Paul says that it is “his misery”, making it sound like the boy is a person and not an object.  Since it is Kat who is deciding the fate of the boy’s life, Paul feels less stressed about objectifying the soldier who is obviously in “misery”.  The decision between keeping the wounded boy alive or killing him has to deal with morality.  Simply by saying “put an end to it” suggests that Paul, and most importantly Kat, have to decide whether their actions are ethical or not.  If one person thinks that it is acceptable to end someone’s “misery” through death, then they are considered to be senseless.  But it is surprising how a simple “yes” or agreement from someone else can explain what certain traumatic situations does to a person over time.  People have to decide whether it is ethical to end someone’s pain or to let them “survive” through it, either in battle or in any difficult position they might be in.