A Vertext of Chapters 2-4�of All Quiet on the Western Front
Chapter 2 page 20
We young men of twenty, however, have only our parents… - that is not much, for at our age the influence of parents is at its weakest
We too had a father and mother, but there were so
many other things as well...girls, cigarettes, illusions,
new ties...and the Country, of course, whose call we would
have answered—when we were twenty—even if father and
mother had said no.
from “War” Luigi Pirandello
Chapter 2 page 21
We have lost all sense of other considerations because they are artificial. Only the facts are real and important for us. And good boots are scarce.
Chapter 2 page 21
[back before] We were still crammed full of vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also an ideal and almost romantic character…We learned that a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer.”
Chapter 2 page 26
We became hard, suspicious, pitiless, vicious, tough—and that was good; for these attributes were just what we lacked. Had we gone into the trenches without this period of training most of us would certainly have gone mad. Only thus were we prepared for what awaited us.
Chapter 2 page 26-27
But by far the most important result was that it awakened in us a strong, practical sense of esprit de corps, which in the field developed into the finest thing that arose out of the war -- comradeship
Chapter 3 page 35
Reinforcments have arrived..The vacancies have been filled and the sacks of straw in the huts are already booked…Kropp nudges me: “Seen the infants?”
Chapter 3 page 37
[on one of Kat’s many discoveries] They go off to explore. Half an hour later they are back gain with arms full of straw. Kat has found a horse-box with straw in it.
Chapter 3 page 41
Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration or 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….the wrong people do the fighting.
Chapter 3 page 43
“For instance, if you train a dog to eat potatoes and then afterwards put a piece of meat in front of him, he’ll snap at it, it’s his nature…”
Chapter 3 page 49
We had become successful students of his method.
Chapter 3 page 49
His [Himmelstoss’s] striped postman’s backside gleamed in the moonlight.
Chapter 3 page 49
“Revenge is black pudding.”
Chapter 4 page 54
It is the front, the consciousness of the front, that makes this contact…We start out for the front plain soldiers, either cheerful or gloomy: then come the first gun-emplacements and every word of our speech has a new ring.
Chapter 4 page 55
From the earth…sustaining forces pour into us. To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. Earth!—Earth!—Earth!
Chapter 4 page 56
We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers– we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.”
Chapter 4 page 57
Everyone carefully look and mark up the page – looking for two very strikingly similar images. Give everyone time. This is the page that begins with “Mist and the smoke of guns…” and ends with “We push on to the pioneer dump”
Chapter 4 page 59
It reminds me of flocks of wild geese when I hear them [the exploding shells]. Last autumn the wild geese flew day after day across the path of the shells.
Later – the plane “a black insect is caught between them [the searchlights] and tries to escape—the airman. He hesitates, is blinded [Joe Behm] and falls.
Chapter 4 page 60
I see the rockets, and for a moment have the impression that I have fallen asleep at a garden fete…Mighty fine fireworks if they weren’t so dangerous.
Chapter 4 page 62
The young recruit – his panic – his helmet – how he loses his underpants…
Chapter 4 page 63-64
The screaming of the beasts becomes louder..Detering raves and yells out: “Shoot them! Shoot them, can’t you? Damn you again!”… If we could only see the animals we should be able to endure it better. We can bear almost anything. But now the sweat breaks out on us. We must get up and run no matter where, but these cries can no longer be heard. And it is not men, only horses.
Chapter 4 page 64
Detering: “Like to know what harm they’ve done.” “I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in the war.”
Chapter 4 page 70-71
The graveyard is a mass of wreckage. Coffins and corpses lie strewn about. They have been killed once again; but each of them that was flung up saved one of us.
Chapter 4 page 72
[Upon examining a wounded recruit]: He is the fair-headed boy of a little while ago.
Kat looks around and whispers: “Shouldn’t we just take a revolver and put an end to it?”
Chapter 4 page 73
Kat shakes his head. “Such a kid---” He repeats it. “Young innocents—”