THE POSTER

Part 2

SUMMARY

The passage is about a poster that the men see in Army Theater a while

ago and the poster is describing what she looks like and how she dressed

and a man wearing a sailor’s outfit. They discuss how old she would be.

Paul thinks that she is twenty-two and they talk about how she would be

older than them. Kropp says that “then she would be older than us, she is

not more than seventeen.”(142) The boys are disturbed by this. They feel

that their raged uniforms would be no match for the man in white

trousers.

Paul says, “We proceed to tear the young man with the white trousers off

the hoarding, taking care not to damage the girl.”(142)

SUMMARY PRT.2

They proceed to take the lice off their skin and

pretty themselves up.

They pretty themselves up because they are taken

back to the real world and thinking how they would

impress a girl. Leer and Tjaden talks about Leers sex

life.

THEME

The theme of the passage is lost generation. The

men strive to relate to woman. When they think

about impressing them they think about getting

deloused. Paul says, “We might see if we could get a

clean shirt as well.” (143)

PAUL’S FEELINGS

Paul feels that he and his comrades are unfit to

court woman. He feels this way do to his dirtiness.

He begins to see the difference between him and his

comrades and unlisted men. Paul says “Who isn’t

smutty is no solider; it merely does not suit us at the

moment, so we edge away and march off to the

delousing station with the same feeling as if it were

a swell gentlemen’s outfitters(143)”