Empathy

William Locke and Kevin Ewing
4/30/15
Literary Analysis Chapter 8
Fitz English

"Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place."
- Daniel Pink

          Empathy is built into us.  In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and Arthur Wesley Ween, Paul Baumer is a soldier in World War One who struggles with feeling empathy for Russian prisoners of war.  Although other troops disregard the prisoners, Paul feels empathy.  He is moved by their struggles, and feels like he should take action.  Paul is standing guard over the prisoners when he is struck by a moment of compassion for them.

“I see their dark forms, their beards move in the wind. I know nothing of them except that they are prisoners; and that is exactly what troubles me. Their life is obscure and guiltless;—if I could know more of them, what their names are, how they live, what they are waiting for, what their burdens are, then my emotion would have an object and might become sympathy.”

This quote causes us to realize the horror of war.  It makes us think that without knowing who these prisoners are men have been pitted against each other because of the order of a general.   Hardly any benefit from war, and the suffering of the soldiers is not outweighed by the resolving of the conflict.  All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the strongest Anti-War novels ever written.