All Quiet on the Western Front Dialectical Journals

Response
Response
Text
Text

Paul illustrates how the older
generation betrays the younger
generation by convincing them to
sacrifice their lives for patriotism and honor. He explains that authority figures from the older generation, like Kantorek, should have been wise guides to the future as the young generation assumed them to be. However, since the start older of the war, the soldiers realized that the older generation had failed them, and
Paul reacts with anger. Paul emphasizes that the generation, which constantly ready to criticize young men for cowardice or unpatriotic behavior but not itself experienced the war, doesn’t know what the fighting is like. The younger generation must look to themselves for the truth because the older generation has proven to be a failure.  

Paul illustrates how the older
generation betrays the younger
generation by convincing them to
sacrifice their lives for patriotism and honor. He explains that authority figures from the older generation, like Kantorek, should have been wise guides to the future as the young generation assumed them to be. However, since the start older of the war, the soldiers realized that the older generation had failed them, and
Paul reacts with anger. Paul emphasizes that the generation, which constantly ready to criticize young men for cowardice or unpatriotic behavior but not itself experienced the war, doesn’t know what the fighting is like. The younger generation must look to themselves for the truth because the older generation has proven to be a failure.  

“For all lads of eighteen they ought to
have been mediators and guides to the
world of maturity to the world of work,
of duty, of culture, of progress- to the
future, we often made fun of them and
played jokes on them, but in our hearts
we trusted them. The idea of authority,
which they represented, was associated
in our minds with a greater insight and a
more humane wisdom. But the first
death we saw...