Paul goes from being a classmate to a soldier in what seems to be an overnight transition as well as his friends do. Alongside Paul, he is joined by a few of his fellow classmates. Leer, Müller, Kropp, and he are all only 19 years old. In the beginning of this book, Paul starts to think about his comrades his own age and how they are torn apart from the outside world because they do not know what they are fighting …show more content…
He thinks she is the most beautiful thing, and he and Kropp try to compete with the man next to her in realization that they really cannot. He realizes not at this moment, but a moment similar, that he is also cut off from love. He tries to find love, but cannot because he is torn away from it again. “And if I press ever deeper into the arms that embrace me, perhaps a miracle may happen… After a time we find ourselves reassembled again.” (Remarque, 150) This perfectly resembles how difficult it would be to be away at war and not have anyone. Paul was looking around him for that person he could love, and in trying to find that he loses what little hope he had left on finding