Comradeship is the motif that kept the soldiers going as things got harder. Paul is surrounded by his friends that comfort him, and make him feel safe. Paul states, "At once a new warmth flows through me. These voices, these quiet words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall me at a bound from the terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I had been almost destroyed (Remarque 212)." Paul was scared of many things, but now he knows that his friends are there by his side through it all. Paul says, "It is a great brotherhood, which adds something of the good- fellowship of the folk-song, of the feeling of solidarity of convicts, and of the desperate loyalty to one another of men condemned to death, to a condition of life arising out of the midst of danger, out of the …show more content…
Paul says, "We sit down and hold our ears. But this appalling noise, these groans and screams penetrate, they penetrate everywhere (Remarque 63)." Something is being killed and Paul and his comrades have to hear it yelp and scream for help. Paul states, "Shouldn't we just take a revolver and put an end to it (Remarque 72)?" They know the boy is going to suffer a horrible death, so they should just put him out of his misery. Brutality is shown throughout the novel in the war