Character Analysis: All Quiet On The Western Front

We Are Lost The protagonist of the All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer, says, "I believe we are lost" (Remarque 123). The soldiers themselves recognize that they are part of a lost generation. They are, "forlorn like children, and experienced like old men" (123). Lost Generation is revealed in All Quiet on the Western Front through the young soldiers loss of innocence, loss of life, and loss of home. The First World War has no positive effect on the lives of the young soldiers. The soldiers lose their innocence on the front. They are typical 19-year-old, young German men at one moment. Suddenly the soldiers are enrolled in the army and in trenches fighting for their lives. "We are the Iron Youth" (Remarque 18). There is irony in "Iron Youth" (18), they are the textbook definition of youth. However, their age is superficial, they
When the soldiers return home after the war or during leave, they are not comfortable in their own homes. The war has no positive effects on the soldiers lives, it takes everything away from them, even their homes. "A sense of strangeness will not leave me; I cannot feel at home amongst these things" (Remarque 160). Baumer is at home with his mother and his sister, he should be able to feel comfortable with them. However, he does not feel at home here, he feels a stranger. Baumer leaves everything behind and grew up in the trenches. He has not been away for that long, but to Baumer it feels like forever. Even though he hates being on the front it feels more like home to him. Baumer says, "She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it" (156). Baumer is not understood by the people who stay home, while he goes off to fight on the front. Comrade is a word that the soldiers use, so he does not like it when people who have skipped out on going to the front to fight call him comrade. Baumer resents the people who get to stay at home while he has to return to the horrors of the