Quote 21
Hospital-orderlies go to and fro with bottles and pails. One of them comes up, casts a glance at Kemmerich and goes away again. You can see he is waiting, apparently he wants the bed. (2.40)
We don't know about you, but the doctors and hospital attendants in this novel don't seem all that nice and friendly to us. This moment makes us realize just how easy it might be to feel like less of a human during this war. Even when a man is far from the trenches, even when he is on death's door, he is still treated more as a number than as a human.
Quote 22
Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out among themselves. Whoever survives, his country wins. That would be much simpler and more just than this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting. (3.42)
Kropp makes us wonder what exactly war is and how it has changed over time. His description of what he believes war should be like reminds us of a Gladiator-like set-up – you know, the citizens watch as brave, Hulk-like people battle it out with tigers and lions. As silly as Kropp's idea is, he makes us think about the idea of fighting for one's country. Could there ever be such a thing as a contained war fought between decision-makers only? At this moment (and in many moments like it), it seems like the author's potential bias against the idea of war surfaces.
Quote 23
"Let a man be whatever you like in peace-time, what occupation is there in which he can behave like that without getting a crack on the nose? He can only do that in the army. It goes to the heads of them all, you see. And the more insignificant a man has been in civil life the worse it takes him." (3.55)
Kat suggests that the context of war lets men get away with behavior that would otherwise get them in major trouble. The hunger for power drives people to do crazy things. As much as we dislike Himmelstoss, we are kind of shocked by the way in which the soldiers beat him up. It seems a bit excessive to us.
Quote 24
A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought when such things are possible. It must all be lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is. (10.209)
Note how the author does not just focus on German suffering, but that of the enemy and the enemy's enemies. He looks at the enormity of suffering and war-wrought waste across the world and over the centuries. Hospitals in our mind are places where people go to get better, but this hospital (and other hospitals of the war) only seem to make its patients feel worse about the state of things. Our narrator finds no relief in the hospital.
Quote 25
While they (the pontificating teachers and politicos) continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and dying. While they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. (1.49)
Who sacrificed here? It was the young men, the real people of Germany who gave of themselves for ideals espoused by people who did not actively fight.
Quote 26
The idea was low but not ill-conceived. Unfortunately it accomplished nothing because the first assumption was wrong: it was not laziness in either of them. Anyone who looked at their sallow skin could see that. The matter ended in one of them always sleeping on the floor, where he frequently caught cold. (3.62)
Even before they go to the front, soldiers sacrifice their health for the sake of duty. What does their "sallow skin" suggest? Why do you think Himmelstoss feels he needs to punish the men so harshly, rather than sending them to seek medical help?
Quote 27
We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they might be ornamented enough in peace time, would be out of place here. (7.6)
The soldiers give up their day-dreaming and their memories of home for the sake of preserving their lives. How would such dreams and memories interfere with their desire to preserve their lives?
Quote 28
When my mother says to me "dear boy," it means much more than when another uses it. I know well enough that the jar of whortleberries is the only one they have had for months, and that she has kept it for me; and the somewhat stale cakes that she gives me too. She has taken a favourable opportunity of getting a few and has put them all by for me. (7.126)
This is the only moment in which we get a taste of a kind of sacrifice different from that of soldiers giving up their lives for their country. Paul's mother's sacrifice is born out of love for him, and she sacrifices her rations, her family's own food, for the sake of her son. This kind of love stands out like a neon light in the harsh and violent context of war.
Quote 29
Ah! Mother! I know what these underpants have cost you in waiting, and walking, and begging! Ah! Mother, mother! how can it be that I must part from you? Who else is there that has any claim on me but you? Here I sit and there you are lying, and we have much to say, that we could never say it. (7.277)
When Paul says, "Who else is there that has any claim on me but you," we think he is referring to the powers that be in the German government who compel him to fight for his country. After all that his mother has done and sacrificed in order to raise him and keep him strong, Paul faces the likely possibility of having his life taken from him in the war. This fact makes all of his mother's sacrifices even more monumental.
Quote 30
I look at the portraits once more; they are clearly not rich people. I might send them money anonymously if I earn anything later on. I seize upon that, it is at least something to hold onto. This dead man is bound up with my life, therefore I must do everything, promise everything in order to save myself. (9.151)
After nearly going mad staring at a man he has killed with his own hands, Paul regains a sense of composure when he vows to spend the rest of his life making money for the dead man's family. The idea of sacrificing the rest of his life for such a cause brings him peace. This idea of sacrifice is very different from the idea of sacrificing one's life for one's country. In this case, Paul hopes to help bring happiness to his supposed enemy's family.
Quote 31
"How far does the train go?" I ask.
"To Cologne."
"Albert," I say, "we stick together; you see." (10.113-115)
If Paul were to remain on the train, chances are he'd be able to get farther away from the front and closer to home. But he'd rather be with his good friend. He's pretty awesome. The friendships born on the front and among the soldiers are really amazing.
Quote 32
When he sees that we cannot escape because under the sharp fire we must make the most of this cover, he takes a rifle, crawls out of the hole, and lying down propped on his elbows, he takes aim. He fires – the same moment a bullet smacks into him, they have got him. (11.47)
We don't see much of the company's commander over the course of the novel, but his final dying act is pretty remarkable. He doesn't die for his country per se, he dies protecting the lives of his men. The men seem to become tighter than family while in the trenches.
Quote 33
After a few minutes, I straighten myself up again. My legs and my hands tremble. I have trouble in finding my water bottle, to take a pull. My lips tremble as I try to drink. But I smile – Kat is saved. (11.85)
The tragedy here is that in Paul's trying to save his best friend, nearly sacrificing his own life to get his companion and mentor safely to medical help, the war still finds a way to kill Kat. We can't get over the cold words of the medical attendants, too. What does Paul have if he doesn't have his friends? What can he live for at this point?
Quote 34
While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded dying. While they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. (1.64)
If the soldiers don't buy the arguments and the words of their superiors, of the older generation, then why do they fight? If the "death-throes" are stronger than duty to one's country, then what does this war mean to the young men who fight in it? What are they fighting for?
Quote 35
We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from the true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. (1.64)
How do these different generations love their country? What examples of this love do we see? Paul seems to be indicating that times have indeed changed, but that the older generation does not recognize this change. Do you think there is a similar rift between generations in today's world? How do these soldiers learn to distinguish the false from the true, and why is it important that they learn this skill?
Quote 36
We had fancied our task would be different, only to find we were to be trained for heroism as though we were circus-ponies. (2.5)
What does Paul mean by "circus-ponies"? We think he might be referring to the showy, performance nature of the circus. Their training was as much about the show of soldierly behavior as it was about teaching them actual tools and tips.
Quote 37
But we are swept forward again, powerless, madly savage and raging; we will kill, for they are still our mortal enemies; their rifles and bombs are aimed against us, and if we don't destroy them, they will destroy us. (6.79)
What is an "enemy"? In the context of this novel, the war makes the soldiers less human. If they ponder too long on the connections they feel to their enemies, they will get killed. In order to preserve their lives, they must become a little less human.
Quote 38
But we do not forget. It's all rot that they put in the war-news about the good humour of the troops, how they are arranging dances almost before they are out of the front-line. We don't act like that because we are in a good humour: we are in a good humour because otherwise we should go to pieces. If it were not so we could not hold out much longer; our humour becomes more bitter every month. (7.9)
Why do you think our narrator writes this account? We get the feeling he does so in order to prevent his own self from falling to pieces. He becomes a truth-teller, a journalist of sorts, documenting the real story of trench life. What would happen if the war-news depicted an accurate account of the war? Who exactly does not want the truth to come out?
Quote 39
The days, the weeks, the years out here shall come back again, and our dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us, our heads shall be clear, we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march, our dead comrades beside us, the years at the Front behind us: – against whom, against whom? (7.11)
What is Paul suggesting here? Who will march and what will they march for, exactly? The soldiers crave a sense of humanity. They do not seem to have a concrete reason compelling them to fight and to kill. The language is here is pretty strong. It almost reads like a famous speech. We could even imagine these words being spoken in more modern times.
Quote 40
On the platform I look round; I know no one among the people hurrying to and fro. A Red Cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: "Just look, I am giving a solder coffee!" – She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it. (7.95)
Paul comes across many people who seem more concerned with the image of the war than the actuality of the war. A nun even, in this instance, is caught up in the performance of help. In what ways is the war Paul describes like a performance? In what ways is it not at all?