innocent days. Further, he is repulsed by the banal and
meaningless language that is used by members of that
society. As he becomes alienated from his former, traditional,
society, Baumer simultaneously is able to communicate
effectively only with his military comrades. Since the novel is
told from the first person point of view, the reader can see
how the words Baumer speaks are at variance with his true
feelings. In his preface to the novel, Remarque maintains that
"a generation of men ... were destroyed by the war"
(Remarque, All Quiet Preface). Indeed, in All Quiet on 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 facile with words prior to his enlistment.
Specifically, teachers and parents had used words,
passionately at times, to persuade him and other young men
to enlist in the war effort. After relating the tale of a teacher
who exhorted his students to enlist, Baumer states that
"teachers always carry their feelings ready in their waistcoat
pockets, and trot them out by the hour" (Remarque, All Quiet I.
15). Baumer admits that he, and others, were fooled by this
rhetorical trickery. Parents, too, were not averse to using
words to shame their sons into enlisting. "At that time even
one's parents were ready with the word 'coward'" (Remarque,
All Quiet I. 15). Remembering those days, Baumer asserts
that, as a result of his war experiences, he has learned how
shallow the use of these words was. Indeed, early in his
enlistment, Baumer comprehends that although authority
figures taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing,
we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all
that, we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards--they
were very free with these expressions. We loved our country
as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but
also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly
learned to see. (Remarque, All Quiet I. 17) What Baumer and
his comrades have learned is that the words and expressions
used by the pillars of society do not reflect the reality of war
and of one's participation in it. As the novel progresses,
Baumer himself uses words in a similarly false fashion. A
number of instances of Baumer's own misuse of language
occur during an important episode in the novel--a period of
leave when he visits his home town. This leave is disastrous
for Baumer because he realizes that he can not communicate
with the people on the home front because of his military
experiences and their limited, or nonexistent, understanding of
the war. When he first enters his house, for example, Baumer
is overwhelmed at being home. His joy and relief are such
that he cannot speak; he can only weep (Remarque, All Quiet
VII. 140). When he and his mother greet each other, he
realizes immediately that he has nothing to say to 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 and asks, "'Was it very bad out there, Paul?'" (Remarque,
All Quiet VII. 143). Here, when he answers, he lies, ostensibly
to protect her from hearing of the chaotic conditions from
which he has just returned. He thinks to himself, Mother, what
should I answer to that! You would not understand, you could
never realize it. And you never shall realize it. Was it bad, you
ask.--You, Mother,--I shake my head and say: "No, Mother,
not so very. There are always a lot of us together so it isn't so
bad." (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 143) Even in trying to protect
her, by using words that are false, Baumer creates a
separation between his mother and himself. Clearly, as
Baumer sees it, such knowledge is not for the uninitiated. On
another level, however, Baumer cannot respond to his
mother's question: he understands that the experiences he
has had are so overwhelming that a "civilian" language, or
any language at all, would be ineffective in describing them.
Trying to replicate the experience and horrors of the war via
words is impossible, Baumer realizes, and so he lies. Any
attempt at telling the truth 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 or no words at all) shows Baumer's movement away
from the traditional institution of the family. Baumer reports
that his father "is curious [about the war] in a way that I find
stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with
him" (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 146). In considering the
demands of his father to discuss the war, Baumer, once
again, realizes the impossibility, and, in this case, even the
danger, of trying to relate the reality of the war via language.
There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I
realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such
things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to
put these things into words. I am afraid they might then
become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them.
(Remarque, All Quiet VII. 146) Again, Baumer notes the
impossibility of making the experience of war meaningful
within a verbal context: the war is too big, the words
describing it would have to be correspondingly immense and,
with their symbolic size, might become uncontrollable and,
hence, meaningless. While with his father, Baumer meets
other men who are certain that they know how to fight and win
the war. Ultimately, Baumer says of his father and of these
men that "they talk too much for me ... They understand of
course, they agree, they may even feel it so too, but only with
words, only with words" (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 149).
Baumer is driven away from the older men because he
understands that the words of his father's generation are
meaningless in that they do not reflect the realities of the
world and of the war as Baumer has come to understand
them. Also during his leave, Baumer visits the mother of a
fallen comrade, Kemmerich. As he did with his own mother, he
lies, this time in an attempt to shield her from the details of her
son's lingering death. Moreover, in this conversation, we see
Baumer rejecting yet another one of the traditional society's
foundations: religious orthodoxy. He assures Kemmerich's
mother that her son "'died immediately. He felt absolutely
nothing at all. His face was quite calm'" (Remarque, All Quiet
VII. 160). Frau Kemmerich doesn't believe him, or, at least,
chooses not to. She asks him to swear "by everything that is
sacred to" him (that is, to God, as far as she is concerned)
that what he says is true (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 160). He
does so easily because he realizes that nothing is sacred to
him. By perverting this oath, Baumer shows both his
unwillingness to communicate honestly with a member of the
home front and his rejection of the God of that society. Thus,
another break with an aspect of his pre-enlistment society is
effected through Baumer's conscious misuse of language.
During his leave, perhaps Baumer's most striking realization
of the vacuity of words in his former society occurs when he is
alone in his old room in his parents' house. After being
unsuccessful in feeling a part of his old society by speaking
with his mother and his father and his father's friends, Baumer
attempts to reaffiliate with his past by once again becoming a
resident of the place. Here, among his mementos, the pictures
and postcards on the wall, the familiar and comfortable brown
leather sofa, Baumer waits for something that will allow him to
feel a part of his pre-enlistment world. It is his old schoolbooks
that symbolize that older, more contemplative, less military
world and which Baumer hopes will bring him back to his
younger innocent ways. I want that quiet rapture again. I want
to feel the same powerful, nameless urge that I used to feel
when I turned to my books. The breath of desire that then
arose from the coloured backs of the books, shall fill me
again, melt the heavy, dead lump of lead that lies somewhere
in me and waken again the impatience of the future, the quick
joy in the world of thought, it shall bring back again the lost
eagerness of my youth. I sit and wait. (Remarque, All Quiet
VII. 151) But Baumer continues to wait and the sign does not
come; the quiet rapture does not occur. The room itself, and
the pre-enlistment world it represents, become alien to him. "A
sudden feeling of foreignness suddenly rises in me. I cannot
find my way back" (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 152). Baumer
understands that he is irredeemably lost to the primitive,
military, non-academic world of the war. Ultimately, the books
are worthless because the words in them are meaningless.
"Words, Words, Words--they do not reach me. Slowly I place
the books back in the shelves. Nevermore" (Remarque, All
Quiet VII. 153). In his experiences with traditional society,
Baumer perverts language, that which separates the human
from the beast, to the point where it has no meaning. Baumer
shows his rejection of that traditional society by refusing to, or
being unable to, use the standards of its language.
Contrasted with Baumer's experiences during his visit home
are his dealings with his fellow trench soldiers. Unlike
Baumer's feelings at home where he chooses not to speak
with his father and makes an empty vow to Frau Kemmerich,
Baumer is able to effect true communication, of both a verbal
and spiritual kind, with his fellow trench soldiers. Indeed,
within this group, words can have a meaningful, soothing,
even rejuvenating, effect. Not long after his return from leave,
Baumer and some of his comrades go out on patrol to
ascertain the enemy's strength. During this patrol, Baumer is
pinned down in a shell hole, becomes disoriented, and suffers
a panic attack. He states: "Tormented, terrified, in my
imagination, I see the grey, implacable muzzle of a rifle which
moves noiselessly before me whichever way I try to turn my
head" (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 184-85). He is unable to
regain his equanimity until he hears voices behind him. He
recognizes the voices and realizes that he is close to his
comrades in his own trench. The effect of his fellow soldiers'
words on Baumer is antithetical to the effect his father's and
his father's friends' empty words have on him. At once a new
warmth flows through me. These voices, these quiet words ...
behind me recall me at a bound from the terrible loneliness
and fear of death by which I had been almost destroyed. They
are more to me than life these voices, they are more than
motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most
comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the voices of my
comrades. I am no longer ... alone in the darkness;-- I belong
to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the
same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder
way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these
words that have saved me and will stand by me. (Remarque,
All Quiet IX. 186) Here, Baumer understands the reviving
effects of his comrades' words. Strikingly, as opposed to his
town's citizens' empty words, the words of Baumer's comrades
actually go beyond their literal meanings. That is, whereas
Baumer notices that the words of the traditional world have no
meaning, the words of his comrades have more meaning than
even they are aware of. In fact, true communication can exist
in the world of the war with few or no words said at all. This
phenomenon is perhaps best demonstrated in the novel
during a scene involving Baumer and his Second Company
mate, Stanislaus Katczinsky. This scene, with its Eucharistic
overtones, can be counterpoised to Baumer's meeting with
Kemmerich's mother. During that meeting, Frau Kemmerich
insisted on some kind of verbal attestation of Baumer's
spiritual disposition. As noted above, he is quite willing to give
her such an asseveration because the words he uses in doing
so mean nothing to him. With Katczinsky, though, the situation
is different because the spirituality of the event is such that
words are not necessary, in fact, would be hindrances to the
communion Baumer and Katczinsky attain. The scene is a
simple one. After Baumer and Katczinsky have stolen 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 in the middle of the night. We don't talk
much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with
one another than even lovers have ... The grease drips from
our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another ... we sit
with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate
that we do not even speak. (Remarque, All Quiet V. 87)
These elemental and primitive activities of getting and then
eating food bring about a communion, a feeling "in unison,"
between the two men that clearly cannot be found in the
word-heavy environment of Baumer's home town. Perhaps
Remarque wants to make the point that true communication
can occur only in action, or in silence, or almost accidentally.
At any rate, Baumer demonstrates toward the end of his life
that even he is not immune from verbal duplicity of a kind that
was used on him to get him to enlist. Soon after he hears the
comforting words of his comrades (see above), Baumer is
caught in another shell hole during the bombardment. Here,
he is forced to kill a Frenchman who jumps into it while
attacking the German lines. Baumer is horrified at his action.
He notes, "This is the 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
can actually see the face of his enemy. In his grief, Baumer
takes the dead man's pocket-book from him so that he can
find out the deceased's name and family situation. Realizing
that the man he killed is no monster, that, in fact, he had a
family, and is evidently very much like himself, Baumer begins
to make promises to the corpse. He indicates that he will write
to his family and goes so far as to promise the corpse that he,
Baumer, will take his place on earth: "'I have killed the printer,
Gerard Duval. I must 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 were only an idea to me before,
an abstraction that lived in 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 they
never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your
mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the
same fear of death, and the same dying and the same
agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If
we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my
brother just like Kat ..." (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 195) In
addition to the obvious brotherhood of nations sentiment that
appears in Baumer's eulogy, it is interesting to note that
Baumer sees that Duval could have been even closer--like
Katczinsky, a member of Baumer's inner circle of Second
Company. All of the sentiments, all of the words, that Baumer
articulates to Duval are admirable, but they are absolutely
false. As time passes, as he spends more time with the
corpse of Duval in the shell-hole, Baumer realizes that he will
not fulfill the various promises he has made. He cannot write
to Duval's family; it would be beyond impropriety to do so.
Moreover, Baumer renounces his brotherhood sentiments:
"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 to me now" (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 198).
And later, to hedge his bets in case there happens to be
justice in the universe, Baumer states, "Now merely to avert
any ill-luck, I babble mechanically: 'I will fulfill everything, fulfill
everything I have promised you--' but already I know that I
shall not do so" (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 198). Remarque's
point in this episode is clear: no one is exempt from the
perversion of language vis-a-vis the war. Even Paul Baumer,
who had been disgusted by the meaninglessness of language
as demonstrated in his home town, himself uses words and
language that are meaningless. Once he is reunited with his
comrades after the shell hole episode, Baumer admits "it was
mere drivelling nonsense that I talked out there in the
shell-hole" (Remarque, All Quiet IX. 199). Why does Baumer
do it? Why does he employ the same types of vacuous words
and sentiments that his elders and teachers had used and for
which he has no respect? "It was only because I had to lie
[One assumes that this double meaning is apparent only in
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 are left with: war is war. It cannot be
defined; it cannot even be discussed with any accuracy. It has
no sense and, in fact, is the embodiment of a lack of any kind
of meaning. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria
Remarque shows the disorder created by the war. This
disorder affects such elemental societal institutions as the
family, the schools, and the church. Moreover, the war is so
chaotic that it infects the basic abilities, not the least of which
is verbal, of humanity itself. By showing how the First World
War deleteriously affects the syntax of language, Remarque is
able to demonstrate how the war irreparably alters the order
of the world itself. WORK CITED Remarque, Erich Maria. All
Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books,
1984.
Written by Peter Muller