The death of Paul’s friends, the most brutal experiences of all, robs Paul of his emotional self, leaving a practical, cold shell. For example, when Kemmerich dies, Paul and his friends take a practical approach to his death: “We are by Kemmerich’s bed. He is dead. The face is still wet from the tears. The eyes are half open and yellow like old horn buttons… I feel a hunger, greater than comes from the belly alone”(33) Almost immediately after his dear friend died a gruesome death from a leg wound, Paul moves on to think about food. Paul has become so hardened by war that he has become emotionally stiff and unfeeling. Rather than grieving over his friend’s death as he would have done before the war, Paul acts practically and thinks about food.
