Now that the silence of the dead soldier gradually creeps to Paul, he immediately attempts to apologize for his wrongdoings, “Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours...Forgive me comrade; how could you be my enemy?” (223). Once there was a dead silence, Paul ignores the artificial divisions between each other and Paul’s sympathy for Duval’s suffering is evident when Paul addresses the corpse as “comrade” and the pronouns Paul applies to refer to himself and Duval as “us” and “we”. The similarity between Paul and the Duval is how they both men are obligated to fight each other because the conflicting governments produce propaganda campaigns that have obfuscated many men that their opponents are devils. A moment after Paul’s one-way conversation, he frantically combs through the soldier’s wallet to search for the soldier’s address and notices, “Portraits of a woman and a little girl… Along with them are letters...Most of it I don’t understand, it is so hard to decipher and I scarcely know any French”
Now that the silence of the dead soldier gradually creeps to Paul, he immediately attempts to apologize for his wrongdoings, “Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours...Forgive me comrade; how could you be my enemy?” (223). Once there was a dead silence, Paul ignores the artificial divisions between each other and Paul’s sympathy for Duval’s suffering is evident when Paul addresses the corpse as “comrade” and the pronouns Paul applies to refer to himself and Duval as “us” and “we”. The similarity between Paul and the Duval is how they both men are obligated to fight each other because the conflicting governments produce propaganda campaigns that have obfuscated many men that their opponents are devils. A moment after Paul’s one-way conversation, he frantically combs through the soldier’s wallet to search for the soldier’s address and notices, “Portraits of a woman and a little girl… Along with them are letters...Most of it I don’t understand, it is so hard to decipher and I scarcely know any French”