All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, is a book about a blind French girl, Marie-Laure, and a German boy, Werner Pfennig, whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Anthony Doerr, an award winning author, does a great job bringing these 2 perspectives into play but still keeping some of the overarching themes the same, making All The Light We Cannot See such a beautifully written book. Marie-Laure, the main character of the book, is a young blind girl that lives in Paris with her father. She goes blind because of cataracts. Her father, a locksmith for the Museum of Natural History builds her a wooden replica of their neighborhood so she can learn to navigate it blind. As rumors of …show more content…
Werner takes shelter in a basement of a hotel but when the hotel collapses because of these bombs, Werner and Volkheimer (the team leader) and both stuck under rubble. Days after, she begins broadcasting. Werner, who has fixed his radio is able to listen to her. Werner, inspired by Marie-Laure, is able to go and rescue Marie-Laure. He helps her hide the Sea of Flames and the model of Ettienne’s hours. They all part ways but Marie-Laure Reunites with Etienne but Werner is taken prisoner by the Allies. Coming to a big shock to all readers, he is killed in an explosion. In the last heartbreaking part of the story, Jutta is in Berlin when Russian soldiers rape her. Marie-Laure and Etienne move to Paris and Marie-Laure begins school. Tens of years later, Jutta is given Werner’s belongs them one of which is the model of Etienne’s house. Marie-Laure, now working at the Museum of Natural History, just where her dad did, is able to meet Jutta. Opening the model house given to Jutta by Volkheimer, she finds the key to the grotto gate and wonders what Werner was able to do with the Sea of Flames before he sadly passed away. At the ending of the book and many years later, Marie-Laure reflects on her life and the important impacting losses and gains with her
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
Anthony Doerr proves the individual writing style in his characters development, symbols, and conflict in the novel “All The Light We Cannot See”. In his unique was he creates the characters who are believable and relatable to readers, yet unordinary, with the struggles and suffering a real person would do. This book brings an inscredible amount of feelings and inspiration for life to truly value the life and remember that the huge price was paid for the peace in which most of the today’s world
Werner likes to please people, but not the right people. Werner builds radios for the Nazis, and they praise him for it, for instance, “Werner sets up the first transceiver, uses measuring tape to pace off two hundred meters, and sets up a second. He uncoils the grounding wires, raises the aerials, and switches them on. Already his fingers are numb… Werner puts on the headset and fills his ears with static…. “I have him sir.” Hauptmann starts smiling in ernest. The dogs caper and sneeze with excitement.” (Doerr 244-245). By the reaction that Werner’s
He displays a failure to go to bat for what he knows is ideal against wrong and because of this, it adds to the way that he is in fear and can do nothing for his companion. He knows precisely what is going on however by overlooking such practices he basically acknowledges what is happening around him. Gratefully Werner changes and starts to take in the lessons of his past and goes separate ways with his feelings of trepidation. Despite the fact that Werner is appeared to have the attitude of a narrow-minded individual, he develops as a character and notices ideal from wrong and tries to change what should be revised inside society. Werner conflicts with his beliefs and develops as a character when he chooses to go and spare Marie in her home amid a confrontation with Von Rumple as he searches for the Sea of Flames. “and the sergeant major’s attention swings toward the noise, and the barrel of the pistol dips. Werner lunges for Volkheimer’s rifle. All your life you wait and then it finally comes, and are you ready?”
This character was chosen to be the narrator of this story. Along with her other two friends, she tells her compelling story about her life and the reason why she left Haiti to come to live in New York. She has triumphed over the
The radio was a major symbol throughout the novel. It played a large role in Werner and Marie-Laure’s lives. It was because of the radio that brought the two together. The radio symbolizes the connection that it give to the people of the world. In All the Lights We Cannot See, radios were illegal. They were illegal because it gave people the ability to communicate with allies in hopes of rebelling against the Nazis. The people saw this as a chance to
The main story in the novel is of Josephine Alibrandis life when she is 17 years old and at the end of her high
In All the Light We Cannot See, the picture of the world is clouded by the brutality and effects of World War 2. Both characters possess a certain weakness that makes them vulnerable to the effects of others. While Werner was under the strict teachings of a Nazi training camp, Marie lost her eyesight when she was six years old. These weaknesses create a pathway for others around them to influence their thinking and
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.
And even though she is rescued, Werner does Even though Werner “lunges for Volkheimer’s riffle. (465)” and physically takes care of von Rumpel, Marie-Laure was just as ready and able to do so, despite her disability. When Werner entered Etienne’s home, von Rumpel was investigating the music coming from what seemed like the closet and probably would have figured out its source if Werner didn’t kill him first. This was proven when Marie-Laure thinks “If he touches me, she thinks, I will tear out his eyes.
In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carter, the narrator has his vision, but he does not truly see the world. The blind man lacks sight, but sees deeper meanings to life.
In case of Werner radio give him a hope for a better future, for a freedom from poverty. Encouraged by those talks he wants to become a scientist when he gets older “He imagine himself as a tall white-coated engineer striding into laboratory: cauldrons steam, machinery rumbles, complex charts paper the walls”. Étienne LeBlanc, as the reader finds out later, is the one who broadcasts it, he broadcasts his brother’s, who also is Marie-Laure’s grandfather, old records, in the memory of the one who died in the World War I(172). For Etienne it the only escape from the deep depression caused by the loss, while broadcasting he frees from the prison within himself. Readers can also notice the importance of radio in Marie-Laure’s life, moreover the credits for saving her life can be given to radio.
Marie-Laure, a young girl, blind from cataracts, lived in pre World War 2 Paris with her father. He worked as a locksmith for the Museum of Natural History. He tried his best to help her deal with blindness by building small scale replicas of their neighborhood and purchasing books in braille. As the Germans grew ever closer to occupying Paris they evacuated to Saint-Malo carrying a sought after stone that is said to be cursed, called the Sea of Flames. Werner, a German orphan, grew up in the Children's home, run by Frau Elena, with his wise beyond her years sister, Jutta. Werner was always a bright child and aspired to be more than a coal miner. He found a passion in repairing radios, which caused him to be offered a place at a Nazi school.
The novel follows the story of Jeanette retelling her life from when she is seven, living in England as adopted child. Her mother strongly follows the telling as Christian. Jeanettes mother educates Jeanette to be a servant of god, by making her read a bible and always be devoted to the god. When she is seven years old, she damages her healing and goes to a hospital and sees a outside world, like she learned the poets from Elsie, that she had never knew from her mothers restriction.
Marie Laure is a blind character in the article who can be characterized as creative and imaginative. She is seen as those who doesn’t require anyone to help her as a blind person due to her high imagination in which sees believes she sees everything. She uses her flaws as a situation to learn from and puts aside all the setbacks it may have creating it into something positive and elegant. For example, in the text it states, “Color – that’s another