Something about All Quiet on the Western Front reminds me of my first time reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding. (I read it five years ago, it is definitely a little blurry!) Golding’s story revolves around a group of young boys who have crash-landed on a deserted island and must learn to regulate themselves. I believe that I draw parallels between these two novels because they both invite the reader into a world where there is a lack of societal expectations, no set rules, and limited ethical standards. The Great War was the first experience of soldiers in horrendous conditions (trench warfare, updated technology, mass killings) where there were no set guidelines to follow. Due to inconceivable circumstances, this war was quite different from those of the past. I am not referring to all the soldiers fighting, particularly those on the Western Front. There, soldiers of all nationalities were forced to suffer for years on end with little, if any, relief. As we discussed in class, men on the front began to assume more maternal roles, ones that would be deemed emasculating were they at home. Comforting fellow soldiers, expressing vulnerabilities, and intimate friendships would all be inappropriate within society. However, due to their secluded position, the men on the front developed a new sense of societal expectations. The same can be said for their lack of decorum. They sit on latrines for hours, keeping one another company. When relating it to regular times, Paul says, “There it can only be hygienic; here it is beautiful” (Remarque 9). The rules established on the Western Front are different because they have had to adapt to a new reality. They eat rats, masturbate together, and beat each other up to keep from traumatic attempts at suicide. As in Lord of the Flies, a different set of rules is necessary because of their location.
Possibly the largest connection I make between the two is their change in moral standards. When a young recruit is suffering from what is indisputably a long descent into death, the characters debate killing him. To many, that is considered murder (which is illegal.) However, these soldiers have seen the pain that a death like this will produce, and their ethical scale is tipped in a direction not aligned with modern society. It is their experience and knowledge that leads to this interesting dilemma. Their sole intent is to fight and survive, and to some, that puts their sanity into question. In the second chapter, when Muller asks after the boots of a man not yet dead, it is considered realistic on the front, but would be appalling to anyone else. These sort of decisions are unique to those who have undergone this same experience. All Quiet on the Western Front may not follow the same story line as Golding’s book, and it doesn’t have the same disturbing actions, but they do both pose a compelling question: what would you do to survive when you are separated from the rest of the world?
Maddie, this is a super interesting connection! I like your post for a lot of reasons, but I think one of the most compelling things you raise is the issue of societal expectations. The men in the war are forced to create their own social order, community, and values just like the boys in LOTF. I think we can see these new social systems directly influenced by the yoking of the Sacred and Profane. We talked about this briefly in class, and you point to it with the quote about hygienic/beautiful, but what was once profane in Normal Times on the homefront is now sacred on the front lines. Perhaps this is because it resembles and reminds the soldiers of life without war, or perhaps it is because war, in its complete devastation, is sacred in its own way. But, and maybe this needs further explication and argument, perhaps it is sacred because they share it. The soldiers are suffering greatly, but they are suffering together. (“We, alone”) This camaraderie allows the soldiers to find solace in their suffering; it is the community itself that is sacred rather than the squatty toilets or bloody fields of poppies. I think you’d have a harder time arguing this in LOTF since they all just tear each other apart instead of uniting under duress. If I remember correctly, there’s less a sense of community and more of an individualistic power struggle.
So, I think your final question raises an interesting point. Is it this community that allows the men to survive destruction? Is it this reliance on one another that gives them purpose when they’ve lost everything else? And what happens, then, when everyone dies? When this community is finally destroyed like everything else?