Today, we finished watching 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. Yesterday, we watched the part in which Paul is injured, then sent on leave.
When Paul is on leave, he sees the teacher who first convinced himself and his friends to enlist. He talks to the class, but when he realizes that he's just not going to get them to understand, he leaves, slamming the door behind him. Considering that doors and windows have been a motif through the whole movie, I find this to be quite significant. I feel that he is closing the door on his old life, maybe even closing the door on his life, period. In any case, it shows that he truly can't go back home now, because it no longer feels like home to him.
That ties in to something I got from the very end of the movie. Having gone on leave, Paul finds that he simply can't live at home any more. Back in the war, Kat is the only person he really feels is family to him.
When Kat dies, Paul essentially loses the one person he still feels a connection with at all. In the last scene, he sees a butterfly; this is not only a reference to the butterfly collection at his home, but it's also the one speck of beauty in the bleak world of war, particularly in Paul's world. Just as he's about to reach the one thing he feels a connection to, he is shot dead by a sniper. I see this as meaning one of two things: The butterfly was there for the purpose of freeing him from the world that has nothing left for him. Or, the sadder version is that he never reaches the one spot of beauty left in his life.
Very thoughtful comments. I've shown the film in class 20 times, and this is the first time the class laughed out loud when Paul leans toward Kat as if to kiss him, but then just pats his shoulder and speaks of their friendship, or to be more frank, their love for each other, a bond not forged by any sexual component, but from the shared suffering of the war.
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