Trench Journal- Literary Analysis (Ch 8)

Paul returns to the training camp.

Paul is bored by the training and decides to focus on nature instead.

He watches the Russian prisoners beside the training camp and sees how similar they are to German farmers.

He sees how tired and defeated they are. They are no longer like they once were.

Paul thinks that his own officers are more harmful than the Russians are and he gives them some cigarettes.

Paul's father and sister come and visit him and tell him that his mother is now in the hospital and will require surgery.

They give him some potato cakes his mother baked and he gives two of them to the Russians.

Paul feels guilty that he must leave his family and is worried about his mother. He is also worried about whether his friends are still alive or not. He is tired of the fighting and of the questions directed towards him.

"They have dysentery; furtively many of them display the blood-stained tails of their shirts"(Remarque 190).

Dysentery-An inflammatory disorder of the lower intestinal tract.

"They used to have intrigues among themselves, as always happens, and it would often come to blows and knives"(Remarque 193).

Intrigues-A secret or underhand scheme; a plot.

There is never a perfect solution to prevent war. The United States and other countries formed the League of Nations to prevent future wars. However the Congress of the US did not want to join saying that it would drag the US into entangling alliances which could cause future conflict. However they did eventually join for lack of a better solution to prevent war. This cartoon portrays a battlefield with a man labeled Congress ducking in a ditch labeled The League of Nations to Prevent War. The man is saying, "This is a 'ell of a 'ole," while another man says, "Well if you know a better 'ole, go to it." This implies that the League was not a foolproof plan or would shield us from war forever but that it would have to do until a better plan was devised. The League of Nations was formed to try to stop future events like the Great war from recurring.

In this chapter I learned that war rips men away from their homes and sucks their will to live right out of them.