All Quite on the Western Front (Chapter 5-9) Summary and Analysis

All Quite on the Western Front (chapter 5-9) summary and analysis Summary and Analysis Chapter 5 Summary Following the desperate events at the front, Chapter 5 creates a quiet mood of camaraderie among the group and especially between Paul and Kat. As the chapter opens, Tjaden rigs up a lid from a boot-polish tin, a wire, and a candle in order to kill lice. While they are relaxing, the group discusses a rumor that Himmelstoss has arrived at the front, transferred because he was too hard on recruits. Tjaden ponders his revenge. In quiet moments, they discuss what they would do if peace occurred. Kropp says he would get drunk; Kat would go home to his wife and children; and Westhus would find a woman and a bed and then become a soldier with the Prussians, reasoning that, as a soldier, he would at least have food, a bed, clean underwear, clothes, and pubs in the evening. Tjaden ponders what he will do to Himmelstoss, and Detering worries about the harvest. Himmelstoss arrives and he and Tjaden have an insult contest, with Himmelstoss demanding respect and Tjaden insulting him and eventually mooning him. As a result, Himmelstoss storms out, threatening a court-martial and Tjaden laughs so hard he dislocates his jaw, causing Kropp to hit him in order to realign it. They wonder if Himmelstoss will report Tjaden, who laughs that he could sit out the war in prison. The confrontation ends in the Orderly Room where Lt. Bertink gives Tjaden and Kropp a fair hearing and the bed-wetting incident is recounted. Tjaden gets three days open arrest behind a barbed wire fence, and Kropp gets one day. This is a light sentence; the others are able to visit the prisoners and play cards with them. Chapter 5 also includes a scene of friendship and affection between Paul and Kat. They go after a goose and end up killing, roasting, and eating it in a shed away from the others. It is a quiet moment of contentment, in which Paul declares to himself, "We are brothers." They take some of the meat to share with Tjaden and Kropp. As the chapter ends, Paul considers the contrast between their evening and the events of the war: "We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death." Then he sleeps. Analysis In Chapter 5, Remarque takes the opportunity to contemplate the war and its effects on his generation. His treatment suggests that for every terrible event there is an opposite opportunity: The comradeship that reveals the humanity of these desperate men contrasts with the terrible inhumanity all around them. Paul counts up the men in his class that enlisted together. Of the twenty, one is insane, seven are dead, and four are wounded. Before the war, these boys sat near him in class and learned about cohesion and mathematics, subjects that do not help them now to survive. As Paul says, "We remember mighty little of all that rubbish. Anyway, it has never been the slightest use to us." This leads him to consider what will happen after the conflict ends. He tells his friends: . . . when I hear the word "peace-time," it goes to my head: and if it really came, I think I would do some unimaginable thing — something, you know, that it's worth having lain here in the muck for. But I can't even imagine anything. . . ." He adds, to himself, "All at once everything seems to me confused and hopeless." And Albert replies, "The war has ruined us for everything." With this hollow feeling, Remarque contrasts the comradeship of Kat and Paul. That evening in their shed, away from the deafening bombs and shrapnel and the grisly war deaths, they share a quiet moment of feasting and fellowship. Paul muses that they sit "opposite one another . . . two soldiers in shabby coats," and cook a goose in the darkness of the night. "We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have." Summary and Analysis Chapter 6 Summary Rumors return the men's attention to a possible offensive. As they pass the shelled remains of a school, they see a hundred sweet-smelling pine coffins stacked against it, preparations for their own casualties. Nightly, the British strengthen both troops and munitions — ominous reminders that the war shows no signs of ending. Paul grows morose and superstitious about his fate after narrowly escaping death in either of two foxholes while passing from one to the other. German artillery is so worn that shells fall on German troops. Fat rodents, which the men call "corpse-rats," gnaw the men's bread. Detering makes a game of outwitting the creatures. The law of averages seems to work against the men's chances of survival. Dispersal of Edamer cheese and rum suggests that hard times lie ahead. From nights of persistent shelling, green recruits vomit from fear, endangering the others with the spread of panic. Although no attack begins, the men grow numb from the continual din of barrage. Paul's trench is almost obliterated by exploding shells, which also hinder the cook from transporting rations from the rear. Two parties attempt to locate food, then return empty-handed. Exhausted by the lengthy bombardment, lack of sleep, and inadequate food, the men battle insurgent rats, which scream in terror. One soldier, overcome by claustrophobia, loses control and is forcefully subdued. His reason destroyed by falling shells, he rams his head against a wall. On the third day, heavy gunfire projects beyond Paul's dugout as the French launch an attack. The trenches, blown apart, attest to the fierceness of the fight. Like robots, the men fall back to more stable positions, surprising the Allies with fierce resistance, then plunge ahead in renewed effort. Paul sees glimpses of carnage as he rushes to capture enemy positions. He and the others, after an hour's rest, consume French rations of canned corned beef, bread, and cognac. At nightfall, Paul clutches a dew-sprinkled gun and walks sentry duty in a cathedral courtyard under cover of mist. After the day's battle, he has difficulty recovering his composure. He allows his mind and emotions to focus on the poplar avenue, which evokes nostalgic memories of home, of innocent play: "We loved them dearly [the trees], and the image of those days still makes my heart pause in its beating." Overcome with melancholy, he longs to immerse himself in the serenity of nature, but concludes, "[W]e fear and love without hope." As the war drags on, Paul loses his sense of time. He and the others attempt to retrieve the wounded, one of whom pleads for rescue but lies hidden from the search party. The offer of a reward for finding him fails. In searching, Albert is slightly wounded. The dying man calls faintly for a woman named Elise, then lapses into weeping. Against a backdrop of fleecy clouds, fresh winds, and blue skies, the dead putrefy, sickening the survivors with a sweetish smell. The next day, Paul tries to comprehend why Haie joins souvenir hunters in collecting parachute silk and copper bands. The carefree larks and butterflies seem out of place in this No Man's Land. Although the cannons have stopped shelling them, spotter planes strafe them with gunfire. Eleven men die hideously. Lacking transport to proper burial sites, Paul and the others heap the dead three layers deep in shell holes. Inexperienced recruits fail as reinforcements and die because they have no survival skills. Himmelstoss, panicked by the reality of front-line duty, nurses a slight wound until Paul forces him out of the dugout with insults and a rap on the head. At a lieutenant's order, Himmelstoss joins the others. Paul becomes disoriented. In his words, "[W]e run, we throw, we shoot, we kill, we lie about, we are feeble and spent. . . ." Paul and the other experienced infantrymen teach recruits how to use their ears to determine which projectiles are incoming and where they will land. Haie, severely wounded in the back, drags himself along, acknowledging to Paul that death is near. As autumn arrives, the line maintains its hold on the trenches, but roll call reveals that only thirty-two out of a hundred and fifty men of Second Company survive. Analysis Chapter 6, one of the most brutal, graphic episodes, tests the men's mettle as they battle for a few yards of turf while living in vermin-ridden dugouts surrounded by hissing, gaseous cadavers. Despite Paul's friend's black humor about the coffins, the soldiers despair as Germany fails to overcome Allied forces. Paul, weighed down by combat, mentions the poplar trees, a strangely graceful, nonthreatening antithesis to the worn-out guns, which are so inaccurate that they endanger German troops. The repugnant motif of rat-hunting replicates the human image of men living in foxholes and scrabbling for food. The ignoble death of rats trapped in the gleam of a flashlight calls to mind the airman who is trapped by searchlights and gunned down. Just as Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest predicts, the rats that survive are the most aggressive — bloodthirsty enough to devour a couple of cats and a dog. Seemingly, even warfare has no limits, as demonstrated by the savage Allied response to saw-edged bayonets, with which they mutilate German soldiers, strangling them with sawdust. The men, disenchanted with dependence on bayonets, rely on multipurpose spades, which can cleave "as far down as the chest." The detached tone of Paul's recitation of how to assault an aggressor evidences his immersion in self-preservation at any cost. Only twenty years old, he is already a grim mercenary capable of killing all adversaries, even if his "own father came over with them." The counterpoint of Paul's stint of guard duty heightens the sense of loss as he tries to summon former feelings of love, innocence, and optimism, but cannot fully override the distant sound of artillery fire that triggers his siege mentality. His wistful, elegiac mood persists, forcing him to accept the fact that his generation is burned out, indifferent, emotionally stifled. He recognizes that he can go on existing, but that he will never feel fully alive again. Regretting the loss of his former self, he concludes, "I believe we are lost." Paul's inability to warm his hands parallels the deaths of his comrades and foreshadows his own coming death. He decries the pitiless landscape, so pockmarked by craters that it resembles the moon, a cold heavenly body. Unable to solace his flagging spirits, he looks forward to a mug of barley soup, but the meal fails to brighten his mood. Even with blue skies and gentle breezes overhead, the earthly scene of rotting, bloated corpses sickens the men, who are incapable of interring so many dead comrades. Against this hellish backdrop flutter larks and two yellow and red butterflies, symbols of fragile beauty, which settle on the "teeth of a skull." Likewise Paul and his comrades, at one time innocent denizens of nature, perch on the rim of death, because they have no other place to rest. Ironically, Paul, himself childlike under the tutelage of Kat, loses patience with ignorant recruits, whose presence indicates that German draft boards lack adult males to restock the fighting force. When recruits endanger themselves, Paul, playing the role of disapproving father, wants to spank them and "lead them away from here where they have no business to be." Poisonous gas leaves them hemorrhaging from ravaged lungs, and they soon die. Haie's injury, which bares a quivering lung, denies Paul the opportunity to bandage and rescue his friend. Haie, familiar with the odds against remaining alive, accepts his fate. Summary and Analysis Chapter 7 Summary At the field depot, Second Company takes a brief, well deserved rest. They are reorganizing, in need of more than a hundred reinforcements. Himmelstoss is friendly and, because he brought Westhus back after he was wounded, Paul is kinder to him. Himmelstoss also took over the cooking from Ginger, so he brings Paul and his friends food. At rest and full of food, Paul cannot think of the front line. Instead, he recounts who is dead and wounded and tries to use humor to keep his thoughts straight. Kropp and Paul find a theatre poster from a long-since-abandoned theatre. The girls in the poster remind them of the life they had forgotten, and they look at themselves and see the many layers of civilization that are gone. Paul and the others decide to visit the delousing station. Billeted near a canal, Paul and his friends swim naked and flirt in makeshift, broken French with three French girls. After the soldiers promise food, the girls boldly gesture toward their house and walk on. Later that night, undeterred by lack of official leave and bolstered by rum, punch, and tall tales, the men plunge into the canal, holding cigarettes in their boots as they swim on their backs to the opposite side. The girls welcome their late-night visitors, chatter in French, and share the food. Paul, disdainful of military brothels, clings to a small brunette, his mind filled with passion for the dream girl he saw on the poster. In her arms, he tries to forget the death and the terror of war. Following their amorous episode, Paul is issued a seventeen-day pass, to be followed by training on the moors, totaling a full six weeks away from battle. Kat encourages him to try to get a job at the training camp; talking with Kat, Paul wonders whether he will ever see these comrades again. He buys his pals a round of drinks at the canteen, bids goodbye to the brunette, and then reports to the railhead for the long trip home. Arriving on Saturday, Paul's heart trembles at the passing scene as it becomes more familiar. He takes in the street, cyclists, a subway, the mill bridge, an old tower, shops, and bare-armed laundresses. The smells of the stream draw his thoughts to memories of playing there as a boy. He walks to his home. Weak from the emotion he feels when he hears his sister's voice, Paul leans on his rifle and weeps, then recovers his military bearing and demands a handkerchief. He perceives the frailty of his ailing mother and sits at her bedside, glad that he feels no need to converse, and presents his gifts of bread, butter, cheese, sausage, melted fat, and rice — rations that are in short supply among civilians. Paul's fearful mother questions him about wartime conditions, concerned about what she has heard. Although Paul mentions that his family was never demonstrative, he feels there is a distance, a veil that did not exist earlier. Unable to relieve his mother's illness, Paul assuages her worries with lies. Later, in the kitchen, Paul's sister informs him that his mother has suffered for several months with a recurrence of cancer. On his way to the commandant's office, Paul fails to salute a major, who chastises him for his bad manners. Having endured the horrors of the front, Paul is angry that he should be scolded for his lack of protocol. He puts on civilian clothes that are too small for him since he has grown in the army; looking in a mirror he hardly recognizes himself. Although his mother welcomes his civilian clothes, his father wants him to wear his uniform, but Paul refuses. He can no longer communicate with his parents, and talking about the war simply worries him, because he does not want to put his fears into words. Everything at home is so different from a year ago. His German master sees himself as an authority on the war and admonishes Paul for his short-term vision. Following his war experience, Paul has a difficult time seeing how the lives of these civilians can have any purpose, and he returns, dismayed, to his room at home. Looking at his books and papers, he realizes he cannot find his way back to his youth. A sense of parting is now in the air. His mother is counting the days, and Paul realizes he must see Kemmerich's mother before he leaves for the training camp. Lying to the woman, he tells her Franz died instantly and is discomfited with her questions and her disbelief. Why does one death make so much difference when soldiers see so many? The night before Paul leaves, his mother comes into his room and they converse, but his thoughts are far different from his words. He wishes things could be the way they used to be, but he reassures her that it isn't so dangerous and tells her that she should not worry. Because his mother is very ill, Paul realizes he will probably never have the opportunity to tell her all that is in his heart. With these thoughts, he regrets coming home, because as long as he remained indifferent and hopeless he survived. Now he does not, cannot, feel that way. Analysis This chapter is a poignant, bittersweet reminder of what happened to Paul Bäumer's entire generation. The front provides a sharp contrast with the home that Paul later visits. At the front, the soldiers see basic needs as most important. As Paul says, "We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted. Life is short." His visit to the brunette is a reminder of the idealized dream girl on the theatre poster. Naked and in her arms, Paul feels strangely vulnerable, clinging to her like an island in a dangerous sea. After he leaves for home, he tries not to put the war front into words, because to be indifferent to it is what keeps him alive. During Paul's leave, details of the beauty and familiarity of home and family touch his heart. He is so moved by the "golden-red light," the Dolbenberg Mountain, and his beloved poplar trees that he perceives the total picture and is moved by it "as though it were [his] mother." Symbolically, Paul passes over the bridge that separates home from the war. His military equipment removed, he looks up at the case that holds his butterfly collection, suggesting the separation between his youthful innocence and the hardened exterior he has acquired at the front. Taking in the sights and smells of his home, Paul cries as he hears his sister's voice. The dirt and callousness of the front fall away, and he shows his compassion in lying to his mother about war conditions. Paul recognizes, with both his parents, that things are never going to be the same again. He can never describe to them what he is facing and his father, especially, is totally ignorant of the things Paul has witnessed as a young soldier. The gap between civilian and soldier is so immense that Paul says, "They have worries, aims, desires, that I cannot comprehend." He must lie to his mother and he must keep silent with his father. What a vast gulf divides them. Back in his room he remembers the schoolboy he once was and looks up at his school-boy books. "I want that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless urge that I used to feel when I turned to my books." Wishing he could return to the "lost eagerness of [his] youth," he turns away, realizing that he cannot find his way back. The chapter's most poignant scene is between Paul and his mother. Sensing that he will never see her again, Paul tries to soothe her fears and put on a stolid countenance. All the while he is thinking: 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; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it. With these words Remarque brings home the total sense of alienation Paul and his friends feel from home, family, clothing, books, trees, houses, bridges, and warmth. This generation is one that has lost its childhood, its dreams, its faith in a meaningful world, and its concern for the individual. As Paul heads back to the training camp, he realizes he no longer fits anywhere. Summary and Analysis Chapter 8 Summary At the camp on the moors near the Soldiers' Home, Paul spends a month in retraining. Drill in the autumn air allows him time to enjoy juniper and birch trees and the fine sand underfoot. The joy of the outdoors plus card games and joking with other soldiers helps separate Paul from his thoughts of the inevitable return to the front. The Russian prisoner of war camp which abuts the training camp, forces him to look at a different kind of war victim, who must scavenge trash barrels for potato peelings and meager dregs, and suffer the bloody discharge of dysentery. The apathetic inmates, who look more like "meek, scolded, St. Bernard dogs" than adversaries, inspire his empathy. In exchange for bread, they trade their boots and crude carvings. Peasants tantalize the hungry prisoners by devouring bread and slices of sausage in front of the silent men. On the last Sunday of his leave, Paul's father and sister visit him at the Soldiers' Home and they stroll the moors together. The hours are a torture to Paul because they have no subject to discuss but his mother's illness. She is now in a charity ward awaiting an operation. Paul's father is working overtime to try to pay the bills, but he is obviously worried. Paul goes with them to the train and they give him potato-cakes and jam his mother made. He considers giving the food to the Russian prisoners but remembers his mother stood painfully over a stove to cook them; feeling a little less guilty, he shares only two. Analysis Away from the front, Paul is able once more to appreciate nature. He basks in its beauty and tranquility and continues his steadfast denial of his own humanity. To think about that would mean death when he returns to the front. He muses on the nature of war and enemies. He reflects on the Russian prisoners: "A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends." War here seems futile and absurd. Why does it happen? Paul begins to think the unthinkable: "I am frightened: I dare think this way no more. This way lies the abyss." To be humane is not healthy, and thoughts about fear and death will lead him to lose his nerve. There is not place for humane thoughts now. The potato cakes symbolize the love of Paul's mother, who concerns herself with his deprivations. His decision to save them and share them at the front shows his appreciation for her sacrifice. In the next chapter, both the thoughts about war and the description of a mother's love are repeated and enlarged. Summary and Analysis Chapter 9 Summary On his way back to Second Company, Paul goes by rail and on foot in search of its new location. He hears that his company is being sent to places "wherever it is hottest." While this is not "cheerful" news, he searches for his friends and finds he must wait two days for the company to arrive. When his friends return they appear "grey, dirty, soured, and gloomy." Paul, holding back his emotions, shares the best cakes and jam with comrades and keeps the moldy ones for himself. He hears talk of assignment to the Russian front. Clothed temporarily in new tunics, for eight days the men drill in preparation for inspection by the Kaiser. When their leader appears, Paul is disappointed that he looks like an ordinary man. After the Kaiser distributes Iron Crosses, the group talks about war and why it happens. Remarque once again shows the plight of the little man caught up in forces over which he has no control. The inspection finished, the uniforms are returned because the show is over and it is now time to get back to work. Returning to battle, Paul, by now desensitized to macabre scenes, marches past parts of bodies hanging in trees, blown out of their uniforms by the impact of trench mortars, the blood still fresh. Paul volunteers to go out on a night patrol with his friends to check the strength of the enemy. Because he has been away from the front, this is his first retesting of his battle courage. Something falls near Paul and he panics. Telling himself that he is panicking because he is new again at the front, Paul sees and hears a hundred sounds and images in his mind: his mother's voice, Russians, wire fences, dead bodies. Covered with sweat, Paul is losing his nerve, and he cannot move from his shallow hole. Paul argues with himself to go, feeling guilt and remorse. But then he hears the voices of his company and imagines one is Kat: It is alright now, and he is fine. Cautiously Paul leaves and snakes his way forward. Now "intelligent fear" and "heightened caution" are guiding him. Momentarily confused, he does not recognize the best direction. The light of the rockets keep him paralyzed and, as he describes it, "A shell crashes. . . . bombardment. . . . Machine-guns rattle." He has made his way, despite his fear, to a large crater and lies with his legs in water up to his belly. Soon the attack will start and he will pretend to be dead. Pulling out a small dagger just in case someone ends up in the hole with him, he senses that shells of his own side fall near him, making him furious that he might be killed by friendly fire. However, Paul realizes that if his own side makes a counter raid, he will be saved. Sure enough, they seem to repulse the attack. Just as Paul is about to leave, a body falls on him in the dark. He strikes at it madly and it convulses and collapses. Wanting to leave, Paul must wait because machine-gun fire pins him down. Light increases and he can feel the wet, sticky blood on his hands. He wipes it off with mud and figures his company has given up on finding him. Morning light breaks and the body moves, a man with a small, pointed beard. Not dead, he is staring at Paul in terror, and Paul tries to reassure him by whispering, "No, no." Paul uses a handkerchief to collect water for the man and gives him a drink. Unbuttoning the man's tunic, Paul discovers three wounds and decides, as he bandages the man, that it is only a matter of time before the man dies. If he had a revolver, he would shoot the man mercifully, but he does not, so he must listen to the man's gasps for breath for hours. Around three o'clock in the afternoon, the man breathes his last breath, and the silence is worse than the groans. This is the first time Paul has killed a man in hand-to-hand combat. All is chance in war. In a moment of temporary insanity, Paul speaks to the corpse. He explains that the man was merely an abstraction. But now Paul realizes, "We always see it too late." He asks the man's forgiveness because he knows now that the enemy is a flesh-and-blood man like himself. Checking the man's tunic for his name and address, Paul hesitates because a name will make the man real and will stay with Paul for the rest of his life. He finds a picture of a woman and a little girl in the man's tunic. They are obviously not rich, and Paul thinks of writing to the woman or sending her money. Finally, he resolves to live for the sake of this man, Gérald Duval, printer, and he promises that if he does come out of this, he will make sure war never happens again. Twilight comes and, along with it, a return to temporary reason. Paul is no longer thinking about the dead man. He is recognizing instead that if he tries to return to his own company, they may shoot him accidentally. By the light of a rocket, Paul sees helmets from his own company and realizes Kat and Albert are there with a stretcher, looking for him. The next day, Paul tells Kat and Albert about the dead printer; they assure him that he could have done nothing else. Listening to his friends, Paul calms himself and tries to rationalize the whole experience. He is finally able to forgive himself and concludes pragmatically, "After all, war is war." Analysis Much of Chapter 9 concerns Paul's readjustment to the front and also continues to develop Remarque's philosophy on a number of issues stemming from war. The Kaiser's visit causes Paul and his friends to discuss the nature of war and those who fight it. They wonder who is right: The French fight for their homeland and the Germans fight for theirs. So who is really right in protecting their land, and who is wrong? These wars are started by rulers like the Kaiser but the little people — the shopkeepers and the farmers — are the ones who must fight the war. So who profits from this event? The rulers and the generals gain fame, and many others profit financially. But those who must do the dirty work are the little people who have wives and families at home. Finally, Albert concludes, "The best thing is not to talk about the rotten business." Later, when Paul kills the French soldier, he promises him that he will try to live so as to bring wars to an end, thus ensuring peace for the little people. The inhumanity of war is drummed home again and again, but in this chapter Remarque uses grotesque corpses hanging in trees to remind us of the impersonal use of mortars to kill large numbers. This depiction contrasts, of course, with Paul's horror when he kills a man face to face. The soldiers walk on through the woods of death, realizing that to stop and think about the grotesque sights will possibly cause them to lose their nerve. It is better not to see the enemy as human beings. In fact, the only thoughts that can calm the nerves and help survival are the voices of Paul's comrades: "They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere. . . ." The most powerful image of this chapter is the incident in the shell hole, in which Paul comes face to face with his capacity to kill. The emotional cost weighs heavily on Paul as he listens to the rasping breath of Gérard Duval, a man no more belligerent nor bloodthirsty than he. Unable to speak, Duval's letters and photos speak for him, attesting to Paul that this corpse was once a contributing member of society — a husband, father, and skilled laborer. Once again, the voices of Paul's friends cut through his guilt, but one wonders whether Paul will ever be able to forget this personal, not statistical, horror.