When we were reading the passage about the soldiers feeling like boys and the character Franz Kemmerich, a specific line stood out to me about age.
” That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old (…)” (in my book page 29)
The use of “nineteen and a half years old” had me thinking of why this specification of “and a half” seems so important. In my mind it could be one of two things: aging Franz up, even if by a little, so it makes his death more conceivable; closer to twenty so the term “-teen” isn’t present, which makes him seem younger. Alternatively, this half could be a cry of outrage. This can fully emphasize how young he is, so “and a half” even matters at all.
Does anyone else have any thoughts on this line??
To me it is an emphasis on just how young he is. Look how close he was to twenty! He never even saw his third decade. What more could he have done with just a few more months? What kind of life could he have lived if his life hadn’t been stolen after just nineteen and a half years?