The challenges of Misery

by Colby Mara & Jaxson Terry

Misery, an experience that’s unbearable, shakes man’s core. In Chapter 11 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul is going through the worst misery imaginable. With all Paul's friends dead the war is the last of the things he worries about or has on his mind. In Chapter 12 of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul is in a garden thinking back on the war and realizes how alone he really is. “I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.”During Paul’s time in the war he has spent a ton of time alone and witnessing death. Since all of his friends passed away he has spent a ton of his days alone and in misery. Paul now has extreme PTSD from all the blood, death, and the hearing of raid sirens. He is now living his war life alone, depressed, and miserable. misery is an unimaginable experience to go through.