All Quiet on the Western Front: Taking Leaves :: World Literature

Paul B&228umers reserve from the war is an opportunity for him to conform to life removed from the harshness of war. As he makes the journey home, the walking(prenominal) he gets the more uncomfortable he feels. He describes the final variance of his journey, then at last the landscape becomes disturbing, mysterious, and familiar. (154) Rather than existence fill with comfort at the familiarity of his homeland, he is uneasy. War has changed him to the extent in which he can no longer call the place w present he grew up home. B&228umer visits with his mother and recognizes that ideally this is exactly what he wanted. Everything I could rent wished for has happened. I micturate come out of it safely and sit here beside her. (159) But ultimately he will decide that he should have never gone on leave because it is just too securely to be around his family and see how different he has become. B&228umer finds that it is easier to h obsolete on out on the war front than re turn to his family. Before B&228umer gets leave to return to his family, he often discusses how the war has changed him and his comrades. However, he does non understand to the great extent in which he has changed until he returns to his old life. Seeing his family, his old home, his bedroom, his piano, and dressing in his old clothes is a direct confrontation with the distance the war has created between his old ego and his new self. A sense of strangeness will non leave me I cannot feel at home amongst these things... I am not myself there. There is a distance, a veil between us. (160) It is heartbreaking for B&228umer to see his family because he has learned to disconnect his emotions in the war. Once soldiers wagon train themselves to be so disconnected, it is different to reverse the effect.The emotional disconnection has sunk B&228umers sense of humanity and makes it difficult for him to be around not just his family, but all people who are not soldiers ilk him. He enjoys the scenery of his homeland but does not equivalent being around all of the people. It is pleasant to sit quietly somewhere... This is good, I like it. But I cannot get on with the people.