Reflection Of Society

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a novel filled with despair, death, aspirations, fear, and fearlessness. It revolves around WWII, in Nazi Germany, the concentration young camps for boy soldiers, and two teenagers who struggle throughout their period of life as well as the people around them. The main lynchpins of this book are Marie-Laure, and Werner, they go in and out of trials and tribulations as well as happiness. Terror is one of the most important things to a human because they are fearful. The citizens of Nazi Germany were in a constant state of unknowing, that’s the affect the War had, the fear of not knowing if their young boy is going to get sent to a concentration camp with Hitler. The citizens of Nazi Germany has been petrified when Hitler made his grand appearance, then the citizens warmed up to him.

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

Werner’s view of the war was that it was real and it was his only way to get out of working in the mines, unlike all the other boys his age. On page 116, Werner is at a Nazi training camp in Schulpforta and he remembers what was said to him and Jutta back in Zollverein at the orphanage, “Exceptional. Unexpected. We will only take the purest, only the strongest. The only place your brother is going, little girl, is into the mines” (116). Back in Zollverein, Werner never thought that it was possible for him to get out of going to the mines, but he made it to Schulpforta. Furthermore, Werner yells, “Heil Hitler!” (116). Werner screaming “Heil Hitler” shows that he is in support of Hitler and the war. On the other hand, Marie-Laure was in denial about the war. On page 97, Marie-Laure is hiding in a room from the bombings that are happening outside, “She smells smoke and knows. Fire. The glass has shattered out of her bedroom window, and what she hears is the sound of something burning beyond the shutters.... ‘Ce n’est pas la réalité’” (97). Even with all the commotion of the fire and the broken windows, Marie-Laure still tried to convince herself that everything that was happening wasn’t real. When she says, “‘Ce n’est pas la réalité’”, that translates into: it’s not reality. By Marie-Laure saying it’s not real, it goes to show how much in denial she is

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?”

In “All the Light We Cannot See”, Anthony Doerr introduces the reader to many characters the two main being Werner and Marie-Laure. Each characters has their own personality, struggles, and perspective on the war. “He sees the interlaced ironwork of Zollverein, the fire breathing mills, men teeming out of elevator shafts like ants… Without hesitating Werner steps off the edge of the platform” (Doerr, 116). Werner came from an orphanage in a German coal mining city where he lost his father and would have the same destiny, working in the mines.Werner knew that his only way out of the mines was to become part of the Hitler Youth program, which he did due to his bravery after initially being suggested for his knowledge of technology.

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

Werner, a German orphan lived a much different life. Before being accepted into a German Nazi school, Werner

Werner and Marie-Laure had a interesting relationship because although, they had not known each other for very long. I feel as though Werner had felt something with Marie that he has never felt before. I think that Werner has always felt out of place, but for a moment he feels at peace. On page 470, he thinks, “I only want to sit here with her for a thousand hours.”This quote also goes along with the fact that Werner always seemed to want to get out of situations or leave situations and I think that this is the only real instance where Werner did not wish to leave. Werner’s love for Marie made him go against his duties by not turning her in for the radio. Marie made him do the right thing instead of just following his duties.

In early scenes of the book, it described the childhood life for Marie-Laure (main character) and Werner (main character). Werner and his sister, Jutta, spent most of their childhood listening to a broadcast of French scientists on the radio. As time passed, Werner excelled in math and was forced to work for the Nazi Party in tracking transmission waves in order to find anyone who had illegal radios (172). During one of his missions in Saint-Malo, he found Marie-Laure’s broadcasts of her reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Werner listened to Marie-Laure’s broadcasts every night for comfort and while listening one night, Werner noticed that, “She stop[ped] reading abruptly and the static roars. When she speaks again, her voice has become an urgent hiss: He is here. He is right below me” (393). This was very unusual for Marie-Laure’s broadcast to stop so suddenly

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

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.

After taking a Sociology class this semester, I learned a lot of about the different topics and concepts in this course and how they are related to our society, which has changed my perspective as well as how I view and see the meaning of my surroundings. I would also think about what would be going on inside a specific person's mind and how he or she was feeling. After learning about different concepts in Sociology and watching the videos presented in class, it became easier to just stop and think about a person, wonder who that person was, and be curious about that person's life story. We pass by people all the time every day, but we never really know what is going on with them and don't really think about it or care since it is so

Social psychology, the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to another, can be used to explain many situations and phenomena that happen in the world. For instance, it can be used to explain why and how people react the way they do when they perform poorly in an act that they’re usually good at, also known as self-serving bias. It is blaming external factors when bad things happen, but contributing internal factors to the reason why good things happen.