Paul Baumer's Metamorphosis in All Quiet on the Western Front All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, a novel set in the First World War, focuses on the changes brought about from the war to a young German soldier. During his time at war, Remarque's protagonist, Paul Baumer, transforms from a rather innocent romantic to a hardened and somewhat caustic veteran. More importantly, in the course of this metamorphosis, Baumer disaffiliates from those social icons – parents, elders, school, religion – that had been the foundation of his pre-enlistment days. This refusal arises from Baumer's awareness that the pre-enlistment society simply does not understand the reality of the Great War. His new society, then, becomes the Company, his fellow trench soldiers, because it is a group that understands the truth as Baumer experienced it. Remarque demonstrates Baumer's disaffiliation from the traditional by emphasizing Baumer's language before and after enlisting. society. Baumer cannot, or chooses not to, communicate truthfully with representatives of his pre-draft days and innocent days. Furthermore, he feels disgusted by the banal and meaningless language used by members of that society. As he becomes alienated from his former traditional society, Baumer is simultaneously able to communicate effectively only with his military comrades. Because the novel is told from first-person point of view, the reader can see how Baumer's spoken words are at odds with his true feelings. In the preface to the novel, Remarque claims that "a generation of men... was destroyed by war" (Remarque, All Quiet Preface). Indeed, in All Quiet on the Western Front, the meaning of language itself is, to a large extent, destroyed. Early in the novel, Baumer notes how his elders had been easy with words before his enlistment. Specifically, teachers and parents had used words, sometimes passionately, to convince him and other young men to enlist in the war effort. After telling the story of a teacher who urged his students to enlist, Baumer states that "teachers always carry their ready feelings in their waistcoat pockets, and take them out hourly" (Remarque, All Quiet I. 15). Baumer admits that he and others have been fooled by this rhetorical deception. Parents were also not averse to using words to get their sons to enlist. "At that time even parents were ready with the word 'cowardly'" (Remarque, All Quiet I.