Author's Note: After reading the first chapter of "All Quiet on the Western Front", I was asked to write about what emerging motifs I had seen throughout the chapter. Something really caught my eye was the reoccurring phrases that suggested death as nothing, almost like killing a bug, easy and you do not think about it twice.
An emerging motif would be the idea how it is so common and easy for
people to die, people do not think of it as someone losing their ability
to walk on the earth. While awaiting their rations for the day, they
were harassing the cook who said that they could not receive more supply
since they were only 80 of the 150 men he had to serve. One of the men
stated, "They won't be fed by you to-day. They're either in the
dressing-station or pushing up daisies"(4). Typically no one would just
casually say that they are dead without even a hint of remorse in their
voice. Life is something to be cherished and preserved just like their
cigarettes and tobacco. They cherish these items because they are the
only things they know that they can keep and will not be gone in just
one gun shot. Relying on people making it through the harsh war, always
in a constant fear and struggle just to keep up with their health, is
far more riskier than relying on some inanimate object.
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