All The Light We Cannot See Essay

Throughout the world, an undeniable, yet perpetual force is responsible for tearing nearly everyone apart: hopelessness. Often caused by instability or vulnerability, hopelessness plagues those who refrain from combating its vile side effects. Hopelessness loves company, producing an inseparable bond between itself and self-doubt. During wartime events, it’s imperative to display some form of resistance towards the crippling despair. Although on the surface hopelessness seems insurmountable, it can be fought. In All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr emphasizes how the vital tool of resilience can be used to conquer hopelessness in all situations.

Once Werner and his crew had arrived in Saint Malo, he intercepted one of Etienne’s broadcasts of coordinates and announcements. Immediately, he recognized “the tenor of the voice matching in every respect the broadcasts of the Frenchmen” which brought memories of his childhood with Jutta. At the end of the broadcast, Werner heard Clair de Lune, a song by Debussy, and was entranced like he was again a little boy discovering the mechanisms of radios for the first time. He made the decision to not turn these broadcasters in, thus sparing the Frenchman named Etienne and Marie-Laure who was the niece of the Frenchman. After killing many innocent people, Werner spared many lives by this action, and in a sense, this worked to rectify his wrongdoings. While trapped under the Hotel of Bees, Werner had only a broken radio and the remaining members of his crew, took time to reflect upon his actions since his departure from home. He was haunted by many of his actions and felt he did not deserve redemption. Even in recognizing the wrongs he had committed, Werner was able to redeem himself; he acknowledged what the war had done to him and his deplorable actions. Werner fixed the broken radio and was able to intercept the transmissions of Marie-Laure reading from Twenty Thousands Leagues Under the Sea while Rupert von Rumpel, a dangerous German private, was rummaging throughout her house. While listening one night, he heard her say that “[von Rumpel] is here. He is right below [her] (393)”; after hearing Marie-Laure, Werner makes the decision to save her. After Werner rescued Marie-Laure, the two go their separated ways and Werner is captured. Even though Werner did not experience a physical reward, his actions of saving both Etienne and Marie-Laure worked to rectify the wrongs he has

vision. Her life as blind girl was not easy, she faced a challenge of not being able to fully enjoy the world around her. She had to rely on her other senses like hearing, smell, taste and blindly trust in others. Despite her blindness she learns how to life with it and make the best of what she has. She had to accept that she is different from others, she could never see the sea with her eyes, however, she still can feel the wetness of the sand on her feet, listen to the waves crushing into the walls, and breathe the salty air which evaporates from the sea itself, :”Smell of wet stones, of salt,through she never knew salt haave a smell. The sea murmuring in a language that travels through stones, air, and sky” (118) . Marie-Laure also fights against her fears, she finds herself one day in the attics hiding from the Von Rumple, ahe questions her strength and even ready to give up. Her enormous desire to life to reunite with her great-uncle and find her father serve as a motivation for her to life. Surviving through the war was the biggest challenge in her life, there were so many times when she losses her hope in better day, but her father helps her to overcome the obstacles by simply believing in her : “ I do not worry about you because

He develops a passion for fixing and building radios, which allows to him to work at the Hitler Youth. While he is there he becomes friends with an interesting boy named Frederick, who loves birds. Werner learns many important lessons from Frederick. Later, he works on a special assignment to track the resistance, which Marie Laure and Etienne start after Madame Manec dies of pneumonia. When the Allies started dropping bombs in Saint Malo, Werner gets trapped in the basement of a hotel with his team, while Marie-Laure takes shelter in Etienne’s cellar. After the bombing stops, Marie-Laure comes out to drink some water, but immediately goes back and hides in the attic, when she hears Von Rumpel come inside the house to look for the Sea of Flames. After staying in the attic for many days, she starts to broadcast from the radio and and says, “he’s here.” Werner hears her broadcast and realizes that she is in trouble and that he needs to save her. After he escapes from the basement, he finds Marie-Laure’s house, kills Von Rumpel, and helps Marie-Laure to safety. After they part their ways, Werner gets arrested by the Allies and gets very sick. While he is sick, he walks out onto a minefield, and dies from an explosion. Many years after the war, Marie-Laure walks to the park with her grandson and reflects on her life and

-The book setting is in New York City at the beginning and at the end of the twentieth century. This story is about burglar from Ireland, Peter Lake, and a young rich woman, Beverly Young. I think this would be a good book for me because I like the whole concept of the time changing and Peter trying to save the dying love of his life.

The novel All The Light We Cannot See, was written by Anthony Doerr. The novel was set during World War Two era and features two parallel stories with characters from opposite points of view. Doers tells the story of how both characters grow up through adversity and how they overcome their personal struggles. Marie-Laure is one of the main characters. She goes blind and has to learn how to navigate life alone after he father leaves her in the care of her Uncle Etienne. Werner, the second main character, overcame being an orphan and makes a life decision based upon his worst fear. Both characters, though living separate but parallel lives, share similar life experiences that are connected with numerous symbolic objects. Throughout the novel Doerr uses symbolic objects to create a connection for the reader between Werner and Marie-Laure. Doerr’s use of this method to bridge the characters together is done so with the use of several items such as the radio, shells and mollusks, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the Sea of Flames.

One of the many emotions attached to All the Light We Cannot See is fear. From the very beginning of the novel readers were able to identify this in events such as, Marie’s early years of being blind. As the story continued, fear was a huge factor in the war, and even after the conflicts, fear still took over the remaining characters. Especially in Werner’s younger sister, Jutta, who lived to carry a son and marry a man. Fear was particularly present when Jutta is in a train with her son and a man joins them. Her reaction was “he sits beside her and lights a cigarette. Jutta clutches her bag between her knees; she is certain that he was wounded in the war, that he will try to start a conversation, that het deficient French will betray her.

Marie-Laure then plays Etienne’s music loudly, hoping that she will be found. The music surges through the radio, creating hope for Werner and Volkheimer again. They rearrange the rubble around them, creating a wall, and throw a grenade. Von Rumpel heard the music, follows it to the attic but then hears someone enter the house. This causes his to fall and accidentally set the curtains on fire using a candle.

Marie-Laure Leblanc, a blind girl whom had to flee from Paris with her father, quickly learned how to adapt to a new town and eventually led to experience the war alone as a young blind girl. Marie-Laure’s story ends up corresponding to Werner Pfennig, a young orphan boy from Germany, whom has a huge fascination for radios. During the war Werner is in charge of pinpointing and destroying opposing German radio broadcasts. Towards the end of the novel the two characters ended up meeting one another through one of the radio broadcasts and despite of all of the challenges throughout the novel they were finally able to see the good in one another.

The Russian Revolution and the purges of Leninist and Stalinist Russia have spawned a literary output that is as diverse as it is voluminous. Darkness at Noon, a novel detailing the infamous Moscow Show Trials, conducted during the reign of Joseph Stalin is Arthur Koestler’s commentary upon the event that was yet another attempt by Stalin to silence his critics. In the novel, Koestler expounds upon Marxism, and the reason why a movement that had as its aim the “regeneration of mankind, should issue in its enslavement” and how, in spite of its drawbacks, it still held an appeal for intellectuals. It is for this reason that Koestler may have attempted “not to solve but to expose” the shortcomings of this political system and by doing so

Likewise, the ability to see would have enabled the character to get rid of Von Rumpel when he invaded Etienne’s house. The relationship between Marie-Laure and Werner would have been changed if Marie-Laure was not written as that specific character. “He might have fallen in love,” states Volkheimer when he states what he believed Werner felt towards Marie-Laure (Doerr 503). If Marie-Laure was not a blind and innocent young girl, would Werner still love her? If she was not blind then she would not need Werner to help her get to safety. Instead, she would have been scared if she saw him most likely. For Werner was a German soldier in her home. The need of blind trust allowed for the end to come to a sealed ending. Marie entrusted Werner with the task of throwing away the “Sea of Flames” and for holding on to the key to the secret sea shore she used to go to. The trust and her gender helped her survive so that she could end the novel. Werner once responded to the worries Marie-Laure when she thought she would have been shot if she walked down the street where Werner claimed was safety. He assures her with, “Not with that white

The conflict between good and evil is used throughout literature. Like the movie Star Wars, Dickens novel depicts good and evil in the form of light and darkness. Throughout A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens writes about the French Revolution, love, and death. Charles Dickens uses a contrast of a “Light” and “Dark” theme in his characters. For example, Lucie, Madame Defarge, and Carton are all described in a different shades of light .

In Darkness Visible, William Styron writes of his deeply personal struggle through depression. He recounts his own thoughts and feelings that he experienced and describes the journey it took to emerge on the other side as he recovered. The book begins on a chilly evening in Paris in late October of 1985 as William Styron becomes aware of the seriousness of his

than a single try to defeat the good. It is no big thing. Only a

The concept of light has boggled the minds of men for thousands of years. We have tried to bend it, twist it, tube it, generate it, and once more are continually trying to travel as fast as it does. Light, fascinatingly enough travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second; that is roughly 670 million miles per hour! Yet, when we look up at God’s creation in the middle of the night, we do not think of the physics or nuclear mechanics that makes them work. We