Ww1 Character Analysis

Material provisioning during wartime is a result of having scarce resources. Food and other consumables are the primary materials that are distributed which are mentioned in the first five chapters. The characters often negotiate about how they want to divide up beans, beef, sausage, bread, cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, synthetic honey, morphine, tea, rum, coffee, turnips, horse meat, and goose. The characters also mentioned non-consumable goods during war time that the characters often used in unconventional ways, such as wooden boxes, the ground, soldiers’ bodies, a margarine tub, boots, straw, wood, ammunition, guns, horses, helmets bandages, stretchers, and gas masks. Throughout the chapters, the soldiers would reflect on their lives at peacetime and speculate about their desires after the war. They would often refer to missing or longing for the non-consumable The difference between the material provisions during wartime and the material provisions during peacetime is that during war the provisions are associated more with survival, while peacetime provisions are associated more with comfort.
Social class played a significant role in determining who received what. These provisions
are decided primarily by where your rank militarily.
When Paul Baumer and Kropp were carrying the latrine bucket, Himmelstoss was on his way to go out for the night. Himmelstoss was a staff corporal, which gave him authority over privates like Baumer and Kropp. Remarque also suggests that higher ranked officials suffered from scarcity of food less than privates by calling the sergeant majors “fat’. Katczinski shares his philosophy regarding the military’s hierarchy: “Give’em all the same grub and all the same pay and the war would be over and done in a day.” He finds it unjust that lower class people like he and his comrades, are put on the front lines and forced to face the realities of
war. War is much like Economics because each consist of a social hierarchy. Economics is born out of the idea of scarcity. Baumer and his comrades suffer from their lack of resources. Because of this, they somewhat lose their sense of social justice and self-esteem as they begin to justify their actions and change their morals. This ties into what Chang mentioned about the law of diminishing marginal utility. Because of the soldier’s unsatisfied basic needs, they begin to sacrifice their, unnecessary resources, sanity, and morality for survival. When anyone of the classmates tried to make a moral stand, their basic needs were taken away from them.