these bent figures from whose body wrings out the blood, and whose lips trembling and d!
             istorted with pain, grin at one another and say: "It isn't much sense pulling up one's trousers again." " (280) Remarque makes the pain and brutality of the war tangible through such grim details as the description of the soldier's skulls getting blown to pieces and shattering like china on concrete. He is constantly contrasting pictures of death and destruction with pictures of life: stacks of new coffins are placed against a schoolhouse where young children once learned of life, and near the trenches there are butterflies flying about. Remarque makes it clear that it is impossible to separate life from death, and that war results in senseless destruction and moral decay.
             The destruction and moral decay taking place throughout All Quiet on the Western Front can represent the decay of hope, coupled with physical ruin. This is the destruction of the spirit, drained of hope, drained of emotion, they are no longer humans but animals. They become self-centered and thoughtless, consumed by the war, and in the end are weary, broken and without hope. Remarque illustrates how war makes mankind inhuman through Paul: "The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts," (128) who enlisted in the war knowing nothing except for hope and youth - without roots, without lessons of life - brought to an unexpected maturity; "we were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. We are not youth any longer." (42) Once Paul's ill
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