Literary Analysis- Chapter 5-6

Account

In the two chapters begin when Paul and his friends begin to talk about what they would do when they got home after the war. After that they make fun of the former drill instructor. After their discussion about the future after the war, they realize that they are unfit for society in the way that the war had drained everything but the war and survival out of them. After capturing a goose Kat and Paul sit in a dugout dreaming about the future and cooking the goose.

Journal Entry

Thursday,
The other day me and Kat caught and cooked a goose, it was delicious, we even felt generous enough to take some of it to Kropp and Tjaden. The other day we got the news that we would be going to the front, and we were. There was even brand-new coffins beside the road, we knew that they were for us. The front was horrible, as it always is. We stayed there for days, there was almost no food in the beginning while we were waiting and in the end we had more things to worry about than food. But we made it, some of us made it anyhow. I still don’t see the reason why the war is necessary, the british troops are just the same as us just with more and better food, but they are still the same, who are we fighting for, what is the use of it all.
Paul

Vocab Words

--louse- Any of numerous small, flat-bodied, wingless biting or sucking insects
-“Killing each separate louse is a tedious business when a man has hundreds” (Remarque 74)
--surgeon general- the senior medical officer in an Army or Navy
-“where they attended personally on a surgeon general” (Remarque 75-76)
--shimmering- a flickering or tremulous light
-“ahead of us everything is shimmering” (Remarque 100)
--forebodings- a sense of impending evil or misfortune
-“our forebodings increase as rum is served out” (Remarque 103)

Political Cartoon

Promising something in return for services rendered is very effective. This cartoon depicts a man handing out flyers saying that if you join the German army then you get a share of America, while the man is whispering the same thing in the ear of another man. This is a political cartoon used to bolster the German army recruits.

Reflection

In these chapters I learned the true horrors of what it is like in the trenches and that governments try to reward soldiers for their impending deaths.