Paul Baumer, the narrator in All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Mariah Remarque, is a character who matures from and adolescent boy to a man while living through the hell of war. Baumer is persuaded to join World War 1 at a young age. During this war Baumer learns to cope with the trials and tribulations of war, when most boys his age are coping with a normal teen life.

Once Baumer joins this war his former thoughts and feelings about war are totally reversed. Baumer begins to experience the horrors of war. The romantic, movie-like version of war with all its glory is proven untrue. Baumer's first engagement in combat makes him realize that everything he has been taught as a recruit is a lie. Baumer state that "The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it" (13). As...