A Savage Waiting

   

  

       "Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells and curses and slaughters. The madness and despair of many hours unloads itself in this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strike out, and the beasts scream; we just stop in time to avoid attacking each other."(pg.108) And so goes the obvious tension unbridled upon rats fleeing a dugout. This action occurs shortly before the French attack.

        This same maddening energy is released by the German company on their attackers. Like above, they rush to the enemy amidst shell smoke and gas grenades. Earlier they had removed any mans' saw-edged bayonets, remarking about men found "whose noses were cut off and their eyes poked out with their own sawbayonets."(103) Paul, the narrator of the tale, tells of the "the smooth distorted faces, the helmets"(112) identifying the men as French. He goes on to mention their losses at the wire. Kropp and Haie, meanwhile, had tossed many grenades into the enemy's midst. Like in the image above, men rush forward into the brawl. While both pictures and books can have no sound, the way the action is described and captured noise is apparent in both situations. Paul describes it as "a circus" that surrounds him. The men in both situations are under extreme stress. While there was no other choice in WWI, the black-and-white photo tells a better story than a normal color. The black tells the story of the dark, depressing time that was WWI. The men stop fighting and just defend themselves, like "wild beasts"(113)