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

Paul B&228umers leave from the war is an fortune for him to see life removed from the harshness of war. As he makes the locomote home, the closer he gets the more uncomfortable he feels. He describes the utmost part of his journey, then at last the landscape becomes disturbing, mysterious, and familiar. (154) Rather than creation filled 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 where he grew up home. B&228umer vi turn ons with his mother and recognizes that ideally this is exactly what he wanted. Everything I could have wished for has happened. I have 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 to a fault hard to be rough his family and see how different he has become. B&228umer finds that it is easier to remain out on the war front than return to his family. to begin with B&2 28umer 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 gray life. Seeing his family, his old home, his bedroom, his piano, and dressing in his old costume is a direct confrontation with the distance the war has created between his old self 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 monstrous for B&228umer to see his family because he has learned to disconnect his emotions in the war. erstwhile soldiers train themselves to be so disconnected, it is different to reverse the effect.The emotional gulf has destroyed 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 interchangeable him. He enjoys the scenery of his homeland but does not like 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.