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All Quiet on the Western front

“I ought never to have come on leave.”

In chapter seven Paul was given an eighteen-day leave. I assume that a soldier would be eager to take a leave from the war front…but in reading All Quiet on the Western Front I have learned that to assume things about life in the war and the mindset of the troops is a very foolish thing to do. So why would this particular chapter end in the thought that Paul should have never come on leave? I would say it is quite possibly summed up in the definition All Quiet… gives us of the term “leave”. “What is leave? – A pause that only makes everything after it so much worse.”(Pg. 179).
There are many reasons why Paul would feel leave makes everything else much worse. But, there are two general reasons that I believe include all the many reasons. The first would be giving up the amenities of home. Although things are not especially good there he at least has a comfortable bed to sleep in. “I go to be...

Posted by: Veronica Gardner

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