The Human Animal

Essay on Human Nature I did in English Class

Ben Eccles

Mrs. Romell

English 1 Honors

10 March 2010

The Human Animal

            All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque is a book that digs deep into the human nature and what holds us together.  Scientifically speaking, humans are animals, and though we try every day not to be mindless animals, that part of us is still buried inside.  In his novel, Remarque uses a story of historical fiction to show us how close to the surface that part really is.  He shows us that savagery can bring that part right to the surface and become a part of you almost without knowing it.  We see how easily it then can tear you apart.

            In Remarque’s story, the main characters, who are soldiers in the German army in the First World War, become surrounded by fighting and dying which pushes them into a deep part of their minds where the beast inside us lives.  They bring the monster to the surface and after that there is no going back.

            Soon enough the men realize what is going on, they see that they have become savages.  Savages that act on instinct, without though or feeling. “We have become wild beasts, we do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation” (113).  They are driven only by the want, the need to live.  But the only way to live in the world as portrayed by the author is to kill.  The ancient instinct to survive “fill us with ferocity and turns us into thugs, murderers and God knows what devils” (114).  They turn into what they need to in order to survive. 

            At first I believed that whatever turns them into these animals was a build in defense mechanism that protects them, their minds.  “We are insensible dead men, who by some miracle are able to walk, and kill” (116).  They are not sane or even couscous of what is happening.  They are simply going through the motions that keep the alive.  But the beast reseeds and they can become men, which I believe is the point of the beast. “Then gradually we become men again” (118).  Whatever makes them turn into animals protects both their bodies and minds from damage.

            That is what I said believes happens at first, but over time, the men become different people. Either the defenses around their minds have finally worn down, or it has gone into permanent overdrive.  They become a constant thing that turns Paul and his friends into different, cold men.  It gets to a point where the men themselves do not know who they are. “We run, we throw, we shoot, we kill, we lie about we are feeble and spent” (133).  The war has taken these men and sucked dry who they are until there is nothing left of who they are.  Paul is the one who says that he has “been crushed without knowing it” it by the war, so that there is no more of him.

            The men in the story live, fight, and die, until that is all they can do. The animal inside of them turns them into monsters that fight to live. They become driven by the part of them that is buried deep in their minds; it protects them, but only for a time.   Too soon the animal takes over and turns them into different people.  The scariest part of the whole process is that the new people no longer need protecting, they are cold and hard.  Remarque digs deep into human physic and what we keep hidden from others.  He has truly found it.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Trans. A. W. Wheen. New York;

            Fawcett Press, 1982. Print

Author's Note

Remember, it,s just an essay I BSed my way through. Just thought you'd like to read it.