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Man Animals forced to fight
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Forced to fight
Feb. 8-07"At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. . . . It is this other, this second sight in us, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without our knowing how. . . . We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers—we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals."Why would Paul characterize himself and his comrades as "human animals"?In the book Paul says something to that he beliefs that leaders of countries that have differences instead of having a war should just fight in an area and whoever wins his country wins the war. Paul refers to him and his comrades as animals because they are forced to go to war and die with out any choice. It is obvious that Paul thinks that soldiers are like attack dogs of their country unable to make any choices. This point is further proven due to time this book takes place. During World War One you fought from trench to trench and some soldiers who didn’t advance were shot by their commanders witch makes there no way out for Paul. Paul and his friends are under a large amount of stress because he said that he would go though forty cigarettes a day. Paul and his friends also face unsanitary living conditions such as eating food from a pot that they have to use as a toilet. Paul also was excited when they got a coffee ration. Something witch he probably had every day and took for granted was now something he almost never has and looks forward to having. Paul hates war and wants nothing to do with the war but he is trapped.A thanks goes out to Nelson Galán who brought up one of the main points of this blog in a discussion we had today.
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1 comment:
Hey. As I was reading your blog I thought it was extremely interesting because you mentioned connections I had not even realized. For example, I thought the metaphor of Paul and his friends being attack dogs was brilliant. But, in the book, they readily enlisted, in fact they were excited to be soldiers. Perhaps they did not realize what they were getting into? I would think that this is the case because war has been glamourized. Movies and books have been made that depict soldiers as these valiant men, but all they are doing is killing for the sake of their survival. Great post!
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