Quote 76
We wait and wait. By midday what I expected happens. One of the recruits has a fit. I have been watching him for a long time, grinding his teeth and opening and shutting his fists. These hunted, protruding eyes, we know them too well. During the last few hours he has had merely the appearance of calm. He had collapsed like a rotten tree. (6.50)
When Paul uses the word "hunted," we can't help but think that the soldier's primal instincts of survival have kicked in. War causes the most primitive of human feelings and emotions (the likes of which humans have contended with for millions of years) to surface.
Quote 77
He listens and for a moment his eye becomes clear. Then again he has the glowering eyes of a mad dog, he is silent, he shoves me aside. (6.54)
As the novel wears on, Paul begins to compare his fellow men to animals and to use animalistic imagery. This claustrophobic recruit can't stand being in the trench any longer. He begins to listen to reason, but his emotions get the better of him.
Quote 78
We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death with hands and helmets is hunting us down – now, for the first time in three days we can see his face, now, for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and be revenged. (6.73)
Again, Paul personifies Death, capitalizing the word and describing it as having "hands and helmets." He identifies the enemy to be Death itself. What has changed here that causes the soldiers to feel "a mad anger"?