Life Class #4

The relationship that Paul had formed with Elinor in the last parts of the book becomes his lifeline to normality now as he works in a WWI “hospital.” The young character we had met in the beginning seems to have dulled in the horrors of the Great War, now a man that speaks of dead men in percentages and one that compassion makes uncomfortable. Paul is working in a hospital with limited supplies and staff when in the beginning of the reading he is sent to go bring in a new volunteer. The hospital has deadened him a bit and he knows the same will happen to the new guy. The new guy is named Lewis, a new bunkmate for Paul and the bane of Paul’s existence as he is put in charge of Lewis’s desensitization to the hospital and dying men in less than Ideal conditions. Paul is now a bit bitter and he is mad that Lewis will soon be the same. The walk to the train station is a struggle for him because of “being plunged back in to the normal world” and the effect that the war has had on him becomes apparent. Paul puts up a defensive wall to protect himself from feeling compassion, a wall that is only removed in his letters to Elinor. Lewis, in a letter to Elinor, is described as “Perfectly pleasant, young, enthusiastic, full of admirable qualities- and he’s driving me mad” (184). Lewis shows us the old Paul and brings to attention the jarring difference from what he was to what he is. As Lewis spends time in the hospital a suicide case is brought in, shot himself, only the irony is he would be sent back to the army to be shot by a firing squad for desertion. This shocks Lewis and Paul, though he refuses to show it, and causes Lewis to become obsessed with this patient. He cannot believe a world lie this exists and it seems to open old wounds in Paul as he experienced it again through Lewis’s eyes. Also as Paul spends more time in the war he is unable to paint and we see him lose more humanity. Elinor, in shocking contrast, still lives at home, painting the countryside. She refuses to change her life for the war though everyone around her has. Her letters to Paul not only suggest a strong relationship between the two but also provide him with a glimpse of what his life used to be.
Themes in the book involve a lot of change and war. To start I think I must mention the theme that to do what needs to be done one needs to let go of the grasp on compassion and feeling. This shocked me in the quote, as he talks of a sister, a holy woman, “Unbending, efficient, detached, halfway to being a monster, perhaps, but she got the job done” (199). The sister is lost to the world, and in her involvement in the war has gained the ability to shun all feeling and just do. Along with admiring this, Paul sees the sadness in this. Another theme is seen as he speaks to Elinor. The theme that love will endure is developed. Paul is solid and desensitized and efficient in other words he has taken precautionary measures to protect himself from feeling for the countless men he sees die. However this coldness is removed when he speaks to the woman he has feelings before the war and still does.
Life Class #4