Sarah's Key Book Project

Book Project #2

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

            Sarah’s Key is the fictional story about a young Jewish girl and her family during World War II and the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup in France. Sarah’s family is taken away, but before they leave, Sarah decides to protect her brother by locking him in a hidden cupboard, where they usually play hide-and-seek. She doesn’t realize that since he is locked in there, he will eventually die. The story flips back and forth from Sarah’s world, in Paris 1942, and Julia’s world, in 2002. Julia, a reporter for a magazine in Paris, is covering the story of the Vel’ d’Hiv’, which is unknown by many and kept secret for a reason that she soon finds.

1. Writing Option 3: Create a prologue, showing the characters’ lives before the novel begins.

            The young girl grabs hold of her brother’s hand and they scurry off, running away from the sound of counting. “No peeking!” the boy shouts on their way out of the room.

“Five, six, seven,” a gentle voice says, their mother using her hands to cover her eyes. The woman hears her children’s whispers, and smiles as she continues to count. Her voice echoes across the room and down the hallway.

The little boy points towards a doorway, and his sister nods her head in agreement. They enter the empty room, scuttling across the floor as they rush to reach their hiding spot in time. They run towards what seems to be only a wall.

The mother reaches thirty seconds, and slowly peeks through the spaces between her fingers. Then she stands up, wondering aloud, “Hmmm, where could they have disappeared to?”

The small boy opens up a hidden cupboard door and the two settle inside. The girl shuts the door with a thud and flickers a flashlight to life. The siblings stare at each other through the darkness of the cupboard, and the girl puts her finger up to her lip—a universal sign for “Be quiet.” The boy quickly nods his curly head and smiles, pressing his ear against the wall of the cupboard, so he will be able to hear their mother when she comes looking for them.

The mother searches one of the bedrooms, and finding nothing, says, “Nope, they’re not in here!” She crosses the hallway, but a knock on the apartment door interrupts her from entering the next bedroom. She walks down the hall, opens the door, and finds herself facing her husband.

Back in the apartment, she explains the she is playing hide-and-seek with the children. After spending a long day at work, a little fun could be good for him. He grins and agrees to help her look.

After putting his work things down, the two start searching again, together. They go through another bedroom only to find a few dust bunnies, so they head for the room with the hidden cupboard.

The little girl and boy start to giggle when they hear their parents enter the room. They try to silence each other, which doesn’t work too well.

“Hmm, well it looks to me like this room is empty, wouldn’t you say?” asks the father.

“Yes indeed, it doesn’t look like they could possibly be hiding in here,” the mother agrees.

The boy and girl try to stifle their laughs, but at this point they are grinning so hard that it hurts. They’ve outsmarted their parents! This hiding place has always seemed to work for them every time they have played hide-and-seek.

“How could this be? We’ve looked everywhere!” the father announces.

Then the mother says, “Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to eat without them then,” as she starts strolling out of the room.

Then a quiet, “No!” escapes from within the wall. After a few loud whispers back and forth, the boy and girl crawl out of the cupboard, looking up with bright smiles on their faces.

“Oh, there you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you two!”

“Maman, we would like some supper as well,” the little boy mumbles, his stomach growling with hunger.

“All right then, let’s go get some food in that belly!” the mother replies.

The family walks into the kitchen and settles down around the table for a nice meal, unaware of how different this will all be in a week’s time.

 

2. Literary Term Option 4: List at least two symbols that the author uses. Provide a passage that includes a great example of how the writer uses symbolism in the novel. In well-developed paragraphs, write about the importance of this symbol in the book. Optional—Include a visual to present with the symbol.

            One symbol in Sarah’s Key is actually the key. At the beginning of the novel, the French police come to arrest Sarah’s family. Since the police only see Sarah and her mother, Sarah is able to hide her brother away. She does this to protect him, to make sure he stays safe. She originally thinks that her father will come back and unlock the cupboard to save her little brother, since her father is not in the apartment at the time. However, things don’t go exactly as planned, and she keeps the key. As they are leaving with the police, her mother shouts for Sarah’s father, and he rushes to their side. He ends up going with them because he wants to be with his family. He doesn’t know what Sarah did, but when he finds out later, he begins to cry. Sarah doesn’t understand; she doesn’t know that her innocent little brother will eventually die in that cupboard. She is just proud that she was able to be a good big sister and help protect him.

When they get to the stadium filled with all of the French Jews, all Sarah wants to do is go back home. She knows that she must save her little brother. She essentially has his life in her hands. But she soon learns that they will not return home, that they can’t. They key begins to be a symbol of hope, a hope that can bring her back home to her brother. She grips the key in her pocket and thinks about her brother through the days and weeks in the stadium. People are dying all around her, yet the key comforts her, and she keeps it close. The following passage shows the importance of the key:

“She had felt her father’s hand upon her, comforting her. The only thing she had in mind was her brother. She could not stop thinking about him. She would take the key from her pocket and kiss it feverishly, as if kissing his plump little cheeks, his curly hair” (de Rosnay 55).

 

The yellow star is another symbol in Sarah’s Key. Since it takes place during the Holocaust of World War II, the Jews are given yellow stars to sew onto all of their clothes. Sarah doesn’t understand this at first, when her mother sews it onto her clothes, and not her little brother’s. Her mother explains to her that she should be proud to wear her star, since she should not be afraid to express her religion.

However, when Sarah goes to school with her star on, everything changes. The other children without the stars begin to shun those with them. They even call them names, telling them that their parents are “dirty Jews” (47). Sarah doesn’t understand why everything has suddenly changed just because she has to wear a yellow star now. Her teacher tries to explain to the class that the star doesn’t change how they should treat one another, but it doesn’t help.

Sarah is embarrassed now that she stands out from everyone else. She is given no explanation as to why the Jewish people are suddenly being excluded from so many things. It is through Sarah’s young, innocent eyes that we see the truth: why should we treat people differently? After being picked on, she even asks herself, “Why was being a Jew so dirty?” (47). Through all of this, Sarah has to stand up and be strong, by proudly accepting her beliefs no matter what happens.

All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

Essay Question: This World War I novel is a story of powerful bonding among men. Using examples from the book, explain how Remarque develops his idea of comradeship in the face of battle.

War engulfs the innocent, overtaking their young lives. The boys undergo a transformation throughout their time in the war, both physically and mentally. In order to avoid losing themselves completely, the youth must form a trust among one another, or risk being consumed by this life-long struggle against death.

At first, all of the young recruits are uncomfortable in their new situation. Upon entering training, they find themselves lost in this unfamiliar world. Paul reflects on this, saying, “I well remember how embarrassed we were as recruits in barracks when we had to use the general latrine” (7). They were in a place unlike anything they had previously considered “normal.” Suddenly plunged into a world outside their comfort zone, the men felt that they “could be reviewed all at one glance, for soldiers must always be under supervision” (7). They had quickly lost their privacy, but just as quickly they had grown comfortable with one another, like a family. And soon they “learned better than to be shy about such trifling immodesties. In time things far worse came easy to [them]” (8). Using the latrine together became a time for talk and bonding rather than an independent activity. The men found that there were some things more important to the war than being embarrassed about their daily tasks. Together, they transformed their ways of life to that of a soldier.

Once they open their eyes up to this new lifestyle, the men begin to recognize the reality of their situation. They see all of the lies that they had been told by people they had trusted—parents, teachers, the government. All they had known to be true about the war had been false, in a way, a government scam. Most of what they had heard was just the German military’s propaganda. Their parents and teachers encouraged them to volunteer, but they themselves knew nothing. The boys had been told that they would become heroes, the “Iron Youth” (18), while in truth, “no one had the vaguest idea what [they] were in for” (11). They had even somewhat peer-pressured each other into the war. Joseph Behm, one of their classmates, had not wanted anything to do with the war, but he also didn’t want to be called a coward. Eventually, Behm “did allow himself to be persuaded, otherwise he would have been ostracized,” (11) by those who he was closest to—his parents and his classmates. It turned out that Behm had been right after all, for he was the first of his classmates to die.

Now that the men see this truth, they are broken. They realize that the war is just this never-ending vortex, sucking them in and spinning them every which way. They cannot escape; there is no way. The boys that volunteered for the war are now old soldiers. The sad part is that they realize this for themselves, as Albert Kropp says,“The war has ruined us for everything” (87). Their lives used to be worth something, and now they have crumbled, and only shambles are left. They already call themselves the “Lost Generation,” since they are forever lost, changed by the brutality of the war. The soldiers are merely left with the sense of brotherhood that they have in one another. They feel as though no one else in the world could possibly understand their situation besides their comrades, their brothers who fight right along side of them. However much the boys want to flee this world, they cannot; they must survive, for the sake of one another.

When one is hurt, the entire family is hurt. When one feels pain, the others feel the pain of their brother. Paul and his fellow comrades stand by one another, through both darkness and light. Paul makes sure that his brothers are in good hands. When Kemmerich is on his dying bed, Paul is the one to see that he is not in pain, but instead in comfort when it is time for him to pass on. He “…get[s] hold of an orderly outside and ask[s] him to give Kemmerich a dose of morphia” (17). At first the orderly turns down Paul’s request, but that is not the end of it, for a soldier does not give up that easily. Even when he knows Kemmerich is going to die soon, Paul still feels for his comrade, and so he decides to give the orderly some of his cigarettes in exchange for morphia. This way, Paul is able to somewhat comfort Kemmerich on his dying bed. Even when both Paul and Kropp are injured later on, Paul makes a similar trade. He does this to make sure that he can stay with his comrade, to look over him and comfort him, like a brother should.

Paul risks his own life for his comrades. Even the new recruits find comfort in Paul. During a bombardment, the men hide in a graveyard, and one new recruit looks to Paul for protection. It is all very new to these young recruits, so when one gets scared, “like a child [he] creeps under [Paul’s] arm,” seeking a sense of safety that Paul is able to provide him. It is as though the new recruit is a child and Paul is a sheltering father, guarding his child from all harm.

The lives of the boys have been crushed by battle. By the end of the war, the soldiers’ “…only comfort is the steady breathing of [their] comrades asleep,” (275) for this is the only thing left that has any meaning. When they hear each other breathing, at least they know that they are not alone in this world. It is a scary thought to be the only one left. Paul tries to save all of his comrades, but they slowly die before his eyes, one by one. When Katczinsky dies, Paul’s mind is fragmented; he doesn’t even realize what he says anymore. Blinded by the cruelty of the world, he answers an orderly’s question about Kat, claiming, “No, we are not related,” (291) when in fact Kat was the only family Paul had left. Paul’s life is irretrievable, for he is already too far gone. Without his brothers, he is lost.

NPR Military Interview

NPR Military Interview

“A Rest Stop On The Road From Soldier To Civilian”

by Rachel Martin and Tom Dreisbach

            This article titled “A Rest Stop On The Road From Soldier To Civilian” by Rachel Martin and Tom Dreisbach tells the story of 182^nd Infantry Regiment of the Army National Guard and their journey home in March 2012. They have just returned from Afghanistan after being deployed overseas for a year. When they arrive at the airport, they are overjoyed to be back in the United States, but they are not allowed to go home immediately.

            Instead, they head to Camp Atterbury, a military base just south of the airport. At this base, they must undergo many tests and assessments in a process called demobilization. The army has to check them before allowing them to return home. They must see how the soldiers have reacted and will react to entering society again after being gone for such a long time. The men will be there for as long as they need to be, many wishing only to get home right away. One says, “You get excited about being in the United States but then you realize you have to be here for like five days, and that's even more depressing. So yeah, I'm basically checked out right now. I'm already considered a civilian, trapped in a military uniform.” However, the soldiers have to stay and listen to briefings, some as much as six hours long.

            They listen to Colonel Tim Newsome tell them about the process of reentering society. He says, “But listen, something is no kidding going to slap you right across the face when you get home within the first 72 hours, and it's going to let you know that life has continued on in your absence.” He tells them straight up that it is going to be difficult at first, but he also encourages them to get any help they need while they are at Camp Atterbury, whether they need help physically or mentally. He reassures them not to be afraid to ask for help.

            They also must see a doctor for checkups to ensure they are stable enough to be allowed to go back home or on another deployment in the future. Specialist John Nestico is one of the men who asks for help. He realizes how hard it is going to be for him to go back to society and a normal job. He thinks that he will feel out of place, since he is leaving the men he has grown so close to in the past year. They are like family, and he feels it will be hard to leave and resume a regular life. “And it's kind of like going from a family to an environment full of strangers,” he says. He is obviously overwhelmed by the quick change in environment. He felt out of place at first, but after getting some help, he feels better about returning to his situation back at home.

            These men relate to Paul and the other men in All Quiet on the Western Front. They feel out of place when they return home, just like Paul does. They have all been through so much that so many people don’t understand. Paul has trouble fitting back into society even for a few weeks. These men were deployed for a year and now have to figure out how they will reenter society in a way that they will be okay.

            These men having to wait to go home also relates to Paul and the other soldiers. Even when Paul and the others know that the end of the war is near, they have to continue battling, waiting to hear of an armistice that does not come in time.

            Also, the men have grown so close that they are like a family. This is the same with the men of the 182^nd Infantry. They have become brothers over time, and they feel that no one could know them any better than each other. They have been through difficult times together, and made lasting friendships.

            Both the men returning home from Afghanistan and the men in All Quiet on the Western Front have been greatly affected by war. Both will have troubles getting used to life out of the battlefield, but they will have each other to help them along the way on their journeys home.

This I Believe

This I Believe

Mistakes are proof that you’re trying.

 

            Life is not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, both big and small. I believe that mistakes can be a good thing.

            Mistakes can help us learn and grow. I’m taking a photography class right now and I have already learned so much from my mistakes. Either I’ve forgotten to do something in the process of developing a print that resulted in a ruined photo, or I’ve just done something a completely wrong way. The point is, I have learned from these mistakes and now I know how to fix them.

            I believe mistakes can help us because we typically remember our mistakes. Whether it’s spilling milk all over the floor at your grandparents’ house (guilty) or missing a question on a test, these things stick with us. I think we all are the first ones to point out our own faults. We immediately notice these things, but we are able to help ourselves in the future by correcting them. Otherwise, we would just go through life without much to remember. Plus, we wouldn’t have all the experiences that we need in order to grow and mature.

            Life is a learning experience filled with mistakes. For one thing, if people had not made mistakes, the human race wouldn’t be as advanced as it is now. Some inventions came about as pure accidents. Had those actions never occurred, who knows what would have happened?

It’s not just mistakes that we use to advance though. It takes hard work and problem solving to fix things and tweak them. One such example is the invention of the light bulb. After working hard for a long time to perfect his invention, Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” He never gave up. He just kept on working to make the changes and fixes that he needed and ended up with something remarkable. That in itself is proof of where hard work and determination can take you if you just keep trying. As Thomas H. Palmer once said, “Tis a lesson you should heed, try, try again. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.” Although the small things bring us down sometimes, we should never let them take over our lives.

I need to start listening to this myself. I am a perfectionist. If something small is bothering me, it will continue to bother me until I fix it. The thing that I’ve noticed lately is that I can’t fix everything. I should not dwell on the mistakes I have made, but rather find out how I can learn from them to grow and develop as a person. Determination and perseverance are key to working out all problems.

In order to succeed in life, we will make many mistakes. It’s just part of the process. We will have to work through these failures to get where we want to be, but we will learn so much along the way. Life may not be easy, but if we try hard, work at our mistakes, and keep moving forward, we will be able to succeed.

Music/Art Video

 

           I picked this music video because I love Coldplay. I love how calming their music is and how it always puts me in a good mood. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” is one of my favorite songs of theirs. I actually had not seen this music video before, but as soon as I saw it, I loved it. I especially love all of the colors and designs that pop up throughout the video.

            I think this video expresses my personality because it’s imaginative. The video is so creative in the way that the lyrics appear on the walls and ground in a variety of colors. It seems to have been filmed in stop-motion, frame-by-frame, which always has a cool effect. I would like to think that I’m a creative person. I used to do a lot of crafts such as scrapbooking, knitting, and sewing. I still love taking pictures of everything. Actually, my family sometimes thinks I am weird because of the amount of pictures I take. Using mostly my phone, I photograph the most random things, sometimes even food. I’m not a great photographer, but I just love to capture a picture whenever I can, because I connect those images with memories, memories that I want to keep. When I see a picture later in life, I’ll remember certain things that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of, and that’s why it’s worth it to me.

Passage from All Quiet on the Western Front

Effective Word Choice and Strong Sentence Structure

Chapter 11 

            “Behind us lay rainy weeks- grey sky, grey fluid earth, grey dying. If we go out, the rain at once soaks through our overcoat and clothing; - and we remain wet all the time we are in the line. We never get dry. Those who will wear high boots tie sand bags round the tops so that the mud does not pour in so fast. The rifles are caked, the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, the earth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie yellow pools with red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, wounded, and survivors slowly sink down.

            The storm lashes us, out of the confusion of grey and yellow the hail of splinters whips forth the child-like cries of the wounded, and in the night shattered life groans painfully into silence.

            Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live” (Remarque 286-287).

            I love the amount of description that the author uses to get the readers to envision the soldiers’ situation. This passage really allows me to create a mental picture of the conditions. The men are suffering terribly in these conditions. Immediately, I am able to picture the earth on a rainy day, sad and grey, but that’s how the soldiers are living every day. I don’t think I would be able to bear it because I hate overcast days. They make me want to lie around all day and do absolutely nothing. The soldiers must live day to day still soaked from rain with no way to get dry. The world that the soldiers must face appears sad and grey.

The word “caked” grabbed my attention. I can picture the weapons and the clothing covered with dried mud, mud formed from a mixture of dirt and rain. The use of this word actually reminded me of a description in To Kill a Mockingbird when the women’s facial powder mixed with their sweat from the humidity outside and turned out looking like a cakey mixture. I also love the use of the word “lashes.” The soldiers seem to be attacked by the storm rather than it just passing through. It affects their lives on the front in a big way.

This passage also uses good sentence structure. The author alternates between short and long sentences, and there are pauses throughout the long sentences. There are also many comparisons drawn and grammar tools used that aid in the mental image that the reader is able to establish in his mind. My favorite comparison would have to be “Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain” (Remarque 287). The men are not simply living on the earth, they are becoming one with the earth. The mood and feeling of the earth correlates with those of the soldiers. Both are sad, and angry, and depressed.

All Quiet on the Western Front Big Ideas

Loss of Hope

Chapter 6

As the war goes on, it is obvious that the boys are losing hope. It’s actually ironic because the German military is partly responsible for this feeling. You would think that the boys would be encouraged to keep fighting hard and strong. However, as they arrive to the front, the first thing the men see is a schoolhouse, shelled and destroyed. Lined up in front of it are new coffins, coffins that they know were made for their bodies. The men have to joke with each other about this saying, “You be thankful if you get so much as a coffin” (Remarque 99), for they know that if they don’t joke about it, they might break down in a rage of anger and fear. They wonder how the military could dare do this to them. They have prepared for many deaths. They don’t know what it is really like out on the front or how hard it is. The last thing the men need is a discouraging message.

             Their own weapons are even a cause to lose hope. The guns that they are using are worn out, much like the men themselves. The barrels don’t hold the shells very well, so some of the bullets are coming back at them, injuring their own troops. At this point, it seems as though they are even fighting against themselves.

            Paul also talks about Chance. Chance is capitalized, like a name, because it plays a very significant role in their lives, like a person. Chance basically controls the men’s lives now. All they can do is depend on Chance to keep them alive during this war. Paul says, “Over us, Chance hovers” (Remarque 101). It’s as if Chance is always there, watching and preying like a big bully. They cannot escape its grasp. Chance will either destroy them or keep them alive.

“No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck” (Remarque 101). It’s now all a matter of being at the right place at the right time, and that is simply the men’s view on the war. It is no longer in their control, so the only thing that they can do is wait for Chance to get to them. They don’t believe they will really survive the war, because they’ve seen so many of their comrades killed in battle. Even if they survive physically, they will still be in a completely different state mentally and emotionally. It is impossible for them to regain their youth or be the same people they were before the war. They are long gone from what they used to be.

            Another place where we see loss of hope is through the new recruits. The bombardment is too much for these new recruits who are young and unprepared. They may have gone through training, but nothing except time and experience really could have prepared them for the front. They get claustrophobic very easily during the bombardment. They obviously aren’t used to these conditions. The Germans are losing the war, and this shows in the new recruits. They are dying in greater numbers and slowing the older recruits down because of their limited training. The German military is losing men so quickly that they don’t even have enough time to train the replacements properly.

The new recruits are still innocent because they haven’t been through nearly as much. They aren’t exactly changed by the war yet, so the front is something of a shock to them. Waiting for days during the bombardment, seeing men and comrades die in front of their eyes, killing the enemy, it all has such an effect on these young soldiers. They are clearly overwhelmed.

Even Himmelstoss, the ruthless officer, is scared. Paul catches him trying to escape the front by pretending to be hurt. This shows how no one really knows what the war is like unless they experience battle firsthand. Evidently, Himmelstoss does not enjoy it as much as he enjoys being the one in control.

            We can see that the war isn’t really getting anywhere. It goes back and forth between the Germans and the French in somewhat of a stalemate. The bodies just keep building up in No Man’s Land, yet they stay there. At this point, the men have accepted defeat and are only fighting to keep themselves alive as best they can. They become savage, but it is only for their own protection. They don’t realize what they’re doing, killing other innocent human beings. Paul even says, “If your own father came over with them you would not hesitate to fling a bomb at him” (Remarque 114). Killing has become more of an instinct and a reaction for the men. They are more concerned about dying rather than killing the enemy.

            There are only thirty-two men left in the Second Company at the end of this trip to the front. The number alone is enough to discourage the men. They went from having one hundred fifty men, down to eighty, and now only thirty-two.  As they are leaving, the Company Commander asks, “Is that all?” and then tells them, “Second Company-march easy!” (Remarque 136). Even he is surprised at this small number. They form a very short line of worn out, tired men who have lost hope.

The Real Enemy

Chapters 8 & 9

            In Chapter 8, Paul goes to a training camp on the moors. When he first arrives, although he has been there before, he feels lonely and spends a lot of his time by himself. Right next to his camp is a Russian prison camp. It is there that he finds comfort.  

            All Paul has heard about the enemy has been propaganda. However, when he first sees the Russians, he compares them to St. Bernard dogs. They aren’t as scary or different as he has been told. They may not usually look it, but they are actually rather frail and vulnerable, at least in this situation. The Russians fear the Germans just as the Germans fear their “enemy” in this war, and all that they knew about each other up until now was false information.

            Paul never describes the Russians as mean or bad people, like he thought prior to now. Instead, he describes them as caring and brotherly to one another. Even their voices reflect this; they are “like warm stoves and cozy rooms at home” (Remarque 190). They seem to be familiar to Paul in many ways.

Paul begins to realize how alike they all are. They are all in the same situation, and he begins to feel bad for them. The starving men must forage through the garbage to find food. Paul himself has been in a similar situation before, hungry with nothing to eat. He can easily relate to these men on the other side of the fence, so he helps them by giving them food and cigarettes.

He has never seen the enemy’s troops so close before. He is used to blindly shooting and killing them, not really knowing anything about them. Paul starts to think that maybe the Russians aren’t the real enemy. He doubts his old views and previous judgments of them. He starts to wonder why anyone is fighting this war at all, since he can’t find a purpose anymore. No one who is doing the fighting actually cares about killing the enemy. Again, they are only fighting for their own survival, and the wrong people are dying.

For a long time, Paul wonders who the real enemy is in this war. The people that started it, the rulers, are the enemy to him. If they had not had a disagreement in the first place or just solved the conflict for themselves, then innocent men would not be dying. If there wasn’t so much greed in the world, all would be peaceful. Paul doesn’t understand why everyone continues to fight someone else’s war. However, he has to stop himself from thinking these things before he gets to a point where he is incapable of fighting anymore. He has to go on fighting, or else he will die.

In Chapter 9, Paul goes back to the front. He realizes how hard it is to kill now. The action of killing isn’t hard for him to do, but the result significantly affects him. He kills a French soldier who had jumped into the same trench as him. He did it out of pure protection, but he soon wishes he hadn’t.

Paul watches the man as he slowly dies, and he tries to help the man as best as he can. It’s hopeless. The dying man makes Paul feels worse and worse about himself. He says, “But every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts” (Remarque 221). Paul feels the same pain that the man does, a pain of realization. The man knows he is going to die, and Paul knows that he destroyed a life which can never be taken back.

He starts to wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t killed the man. He imagines the man’s life. The man has a family somewhere back home, just like Paul. Paul finds a picture in the man’s wallet of his daughter and wife. He suffers with the thought that he just widowed a woman and made a young girl fatherless. He wants to write to them, to tell them that he’s sorry. He talks to the dead man because it is all he can do to keep himself from going crazy.

All the numbness that Paul had towards death is gone in this moment. He realizes the magnitude of his actions and the long list of effects it brings. Paul truly hates the war now that he has seen the other side of it, the so called “enemy,” but he realizes just how similar the two sides really are. The real enemy is no longer the people that he is told to fight.