Why does the reader admire Paul in all quiet on the western front?

Answer 1

This.. sounds like a homework question.

Well if you have read it or at least sparknoted it then you would know that Paul has a strong character. He is stuck in a war that is not his doing, he has been disillusioned by war which was not the grandiose heroic act he thought it would be. Instead he sees day after day more of his friends die, people who he has gone to school with and some who are just strangers that he becomes close with. He is not quick to judge as shown in the scene when Müller wants Kemmerich's boots after his death. Others were upset because the act seemed insensitive but Paul didn't judge. He knew that it was only a pragmatic idea. Paul is if you think about it still a boy. He just left school and yet he is stuck in a war. He is a youth but he keeps a steady mind as he goes through the horrors of WWI, which is the first modern war (a war unlike any that the world had seen before at the time. one with so much senseless death, bombs, gas, automatic guns and heavy use of trench warfare). He tries to keep his innocence as shown when he goes swimming with his friends and meets the french girls. He wants to just forget about the war and be with someone normal for once but he never runs away from his duties. He even manages to his humanity during the war though it does show that regardless of how he tries to handle the horrors he's seen he could never really go back to regular society. He is forever stuck unable to tell of what he has seen because it would ruin others lives and is instead stuck with a nightmare. I think that the reader feels more compassion towards Paul just because he is so similar to the reader in the sense that he is an ordinary youth who has the will to live like everyone else so he is someone they could relate to and yet he has been put through hell and back.

Answer 2

Readers admire Paul in "All Quiet on the Western Front" for his courage, loyalty to his friends, and his ability to maintain his humanity in the face of the horrors of war. Paul's introspective and reflective nature also resonates with readers as he grapples with the disillusionment and futility of war.