DEHUMANIZATION
in order to survive they have to deny themselves human char.
keeping sanity(survial0 and life(livelihood) is dependent on ability to dehum
1.maintain emo distanct:
-thoughts get in way of ability to kill
-cannot let heart dictate, compassion will get him killed
-shrug off deaths of comrades, kemmerichs mother, French men, answering questions
2. transform to animal instincts
-kill mindlessly, no thinking, operate by instincts, annihilation of all hum feelings
-no sympathy, pity, regret allow instincts to take over, trust senses
3, psychologically
- cannot burden themselves with normal feelings
-thinking + gives false hope it will come true
COMRADESHIP
-only thing that enables a solider to survive an inhumane and deadly environment
-company, loney, talk to, relate to, give hope, encouageing- ex Kemmerich leg(pg 31)
-comforting- panic in trench, hears comrade voice and knows he’ll be okay
-trust- himmelstoss revenge
- kat and paul- deeper, stronger, war binds them together, relate, understand eachother
HOPE
- war destroys hope, soldiers rely on the endurance of the human spirit.
hope of getting youth back
-entered war threshold of adulthood, no concrete idenities, nothing to go back to
-don’t know themselves w/o war(Haie 86-87)- poster girl
-ruined them, no longer relate, or function in future, unable to feel.
- something in a human spirit cannot deny a desire for a future and better life
LOST GENERATION-
Kantorek- no longer trust elders, persistant
-changed so much, a gulf of who he was and is- cannot live a normal life
-generation after and before will not remember- all they know is death and despair
-cut short and ruined, lost in new idenity
-dreams they possessed are out of reach. Given up hopes and aspirations
ESTRANGMENT- dead comrades, sexual, mother, studies, kemmericks mother