Quote 41
It is strange to see these enemies of ours so close up. They have faces that make one think – honest peasant faces, broad foreheads, broad noses, broad mouths, broad hands, and thick hair.
They ought to be put to threshing, reaping, and apple-picking. They look just as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland. (8.11-12)
The more the soldiers find connections and a sense of humanity in their enemies, the harder it is for them to endure the war. Again, nature and farming imagery comes up in this moment. The French soldiers don't look like killers – they look like cultivators of the earth, people who bring about life, not death.
Quote 42
We had sworn for weeks past to do this. Kropp had even gone so far as to propose entering the postal service in peace-time in order to be Himmelstoss's superior when he became a postman again. He reveled in the thought of how he would grind him. It was this that made it impossible for him to crush us altogether – we always reckoned that later, at the end of the war, we would have our revenge on him. (3.62)
Himmelstoss seems like more of an enemy than anyone else in this novel.
Quote 43
He put himself in position with evident satisfaction, raised his arm like a signal-mast and his hand like a coal-shovel and fetched such a blow on the white sack as would have felled an ox. (3.71)
Covered in a sheet, this isn't exactly a fair match. The soldiers aren't just having fun with Himmelstoss at this point – there seem to be some heavy emotions involved in this abuse.
Quote 44
"Couldn't you polish him up a bit?" I ask.
"He's too stupid, I couldn't be bothered," answers Mittelstaedt contemptuously. (7.129)
Do you agree with the way Mittelstaedt takes revenge on Kantorek? Paul seems to suggest that his friend should take pity on and try to improve their old school teacher. In many ways it seems that these soldiers have so little joy in their lives that revenge-seeking must be executed in only the most harsh and satisfying ways.
Quote 45
Any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any school-master to a pupil than they are to us. And yet we would shoot at them again and they at us if they were free. (8.22)
In this war the real enemies go unaccused, and the soldiers must bring about their own form of justice. As soldiers, however, they must follow the rules of their country and kill upon command.
Quote 46
The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas people who were better off were beside themselves with joy, though they should have been much better able to judge what the consequences would be. (1.58)
People with more money have access to more information, so why, our narrator asks, are they so joyful about this war? Paul perhaps suggests that people who are less well off know how hard it is to survive in the world without the help of a war. What examples of money do we see in this novel?
Quote 47
Under the skin the life no longer pulses, it has already pressed out to the boundaries of the body. Death is working through from within. It already has command in the eyes. Here lies our comrade, Kemmerich, who a little while ago was roasting horse-flesh with us and squatting in the shell-holes. He it is still and yet it is not he any longer. (1.72)
Paul personifies death in this moment, making it seem like an all-powerful being that wins over a body. Paul has seen and witnessed so much death in his young life that he knows very certainly that his friend is dying.
Quote 48
But the shelling is stronger than everything. It wipes out the sensibilities, I merely crawl still deeper in the coffin, it should protect me, and especially as Death himself lies in it too. (4.88)
Again, Paul personifies death, even choosing to capitalize it. In a way Paul survives by hiding behind death.
Quote 49
When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over a single individual. So I say rather impatiently: "He died immediately. He felt absolutely nothing at all. His face was quite calm." (7.239)
Even though Paul has suffered through many of his compatriots' deaths, and even though he feels deeply every time he sees a dead body, the war has forced him to become hardened to feeling anything. Perhaps he grows impatient at this moment with Kemmerich's mother because he is in danger of being emotionally affected by her grief. If he begins to explore his sadness, he might never recover from it.
Quote 50
In the branches dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squatting in the fork of a tree, he still has his helmet on, otherwise he is entirely unclad. There is only half of him sitting up there, the top half, the legs are missing. (9.66)
The soldiers do not just witness death as a result of gun or knife wounds. This is a new kind of war with technology so powerful that one weapon can kill many men at once. Death is redefined by this war.
Quote 51
Parting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army. (10.236)
Paul is constantly stashing his emotions away. Something tells us that his parting from Kropp is more than just "very hard." There's something very abrupt about the way Paul describes this parting, especially after how hard he fought to stick with Kropp.
Quote 52
Now the trees are green again. Our life alternates between billets and the front. We have almost grown accustomed to it; war is a cause of death like cancer and tuberculosis, like influenza and dysentery. The deaths are merely more frequent, more varied and terrible. (11.1)
What is the difference between war and cancer or tuberculosis or influenza? It seems to us that humans have more control over a war than they have over sickness.
Quote 53
Here, on the borders of death, life follows an amazingly simple course, it is limited to what is most necessary, all else lies buried in gloomy sleep; – in that lies our primitiveness and our survival. (11.6)
What is most necessary to the soldiers in this novel? Does Paul refer to death when he speaks of "gloomy sleep" here, or is he referring the dreams and memories that are snuffed out by the troubled sleep that the soldiers get every night? They do not live, they merely survive.
Quote 54
All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death; – it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct – it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought. (11.6)
Do you perceive Paul and his compatriots to be "unthinking animals?" When is Paul writing this account? He must write it as a soldier, and, therefore, he is not an "unthinking animal," but a very reflective human, in our opinion.
Quote 55
Yesterday we were relieved, and now our bellies are full of beef and haricot beans. We are satisfied and at peace. Each man has another mess-tin full for the evening; and, what is more, there is a double ration of sausage and bread. That puts a man in fine trim. (1.1)
Is there an innocence to the way the soldiers live (despite the fact that they deal with death so frequently)? In this description we see how fully they take pleasure in something as simple as food.
Quote 56
These are wonderfully care-free hours. Over us is the blue sky. On the horizon float the bright yellow sunlit observation-balloons, and the many little white clouds of the anti-aircraft shells […] we hear the muffled rumble of the front only as a very distant thunder, bumble-bees droning by quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer. We read letters and newspapers and smoke. (1.46)
At a moment like this, the soldiers find themselves in a kind of protected paradise. Nature imagery figures largely throughout the novel, and we especially see this imagery in this moment. They are detached from the unnatural workings of war, and are surrounded by buzzing life.
Quote 57
Iron Youth. Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk. (1.106)
Does Paul seem like a twenty-year-old? When in the novel does he seem older or younger?
Quote 58
I nod. We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits and feel ourselves to be stone-age veterans. (3.2)
We feel like Paul and his compatriots are constantly losing a layer of innocence with each event and each experience they endure over the course of the novel. When compared with their selves at the end of the novel, these "stone-age veterans" seem like puppies, young and sprightly.
Quote 59
I don't know whether it's morning or evening. I lie in the pale cradle of the twilight, and listen for the soft words which will come, soft and near – am I crying? I put my hand to my eyes, it is so fantastic; am I a child? (4.43)
Sleep is the only thing powerful enough to make the soldiers forget where they are. This is a heartbreaking moment in which the rockets overhead seem almost like fireworks to a newly wakened Paul.
Quote 60
Beside us lies a fair-headed recruit in utter terror. He has buried his face in his hands, his helmet has fallen off. I fish hold of it and try to put it back on his head. He looks up, pushes the helmet off and like a child creeps under my arm, his head close to my breast. The little shoulders heave. (4.48)
This new recruit makes us realize just how brave Paul and his compatriots are. If we were thrown into this trench, we would probably do exactly what this young recruit is doing. We are reminded at this moment of just how young these men are.