All The Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr
Joris Vrijlandt
A4B
9-3-2018
Table of contents
Table of contents 2
Characters 3
Time 3
Theme 4
Motive 4
Symbolism 4
Blindness 4
Sea of flames 4
Models 5
Radio 5
Narrator 5
Style 5
My opinion 5
Assignment 2 6
Characters
There are two protagonists in All The Light We Cannot See.
The first main character is Marie-Laure. Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a tall, freckled, young girl that became blind at the age of six. She lives with her father Daniel in Paris. Marie-Laure loves her father more than anything in the world. Daniel LeBlanc is clever and good with his hands and therefore the job as a locksmith at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle suits him. His talent allows Daniel to make a model of Paris. By using the model Marie-Laure could walk around the city. For example Daniel wanted Marie-Laure to take them back home by only thinking of the model. During World War II when the bombing started, Marie-Laure and Daniel fled to their uncle Etienne LeBlanc. According to Daniel, Marie-Laure is a very brave girl. He keeps on telling it while they are on their way to Saint-Malo. She is not only brave, she is also very adventurous and clever. For example, Marie-Laure volunteers to participate in the French resistance to fight against the Germans also she solves the riddles her father gives her on her birthday. Daniel protects a diamond named “The Sea of Flames”. When Daniel got imprisoned, Marie-Laure became a lot more independent. As a reader you get to know all the thoughts and emotions that Marie-Laure feels, like when she has to take her father back home, you can read her thoughts, “calm yourself. Listen.”
The second Protagonist is Werner Pfennig. Werner is an orphan who lives with his sister Jutta in the industrial Western Germany. Werner is a small boy, with blond hair and blue eyes, just what an Aryan should look like. He was obsessed with science. Almost every evening Werner and Jutta listen to a French radio station where they discuss things like optical illusions and electromagnetism. By listening Werner creates a way of thinking whereby he could fix many broken things, like a radio. Werner went to a Nazi school, where he learned more about science. After school he went to war, were he helped Volkheimer for example with his skills to kill many enemies. Just like with Marie-Laure you can read his emotions. ‘Werner can feel his cheeks flush’: this is an example of the feelings of Werner.
The two characters meet in Saint-Malo 1944. Werner can see Marie-Laure using the radio, which is forbidden. Werner spares Marie-Laure’s life when he finds out that she is making the program he and Jutta used to listen to, this memory of his youth makes Werner spare the life of Marie-Laure.
Time
The story runs during World War II. This episode is essential to the story, because if there had not been a war, the two characters would never met. Werner would have never had to leave Germany; instead he would probably have gone mining, and Marie-Laure would still live in Paris. All The Light We Cannot See starts in 1944. It starts with bombings, after the bombings, Doerr start to introduce the protagonists. This was a flash-forward. After the first flashforward the story continues in 1934, when Marie-Laure became blind for example. While the story continues, the flash forwards are a story of their own. The lives of Marie-Laure and Werner are the ‘normal’ stories, and the story of Von Rumpel is told in a flash-forward: in this story Von Rumpel is on his quest for the Sea of Flames, because the diamond will give eternal life and Von Rumpel is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Theme
I think the theme of All The Light We Cannot See is the tragedy of war. By reading the emotions of Marie-Laure and Werner you can recognize that it is a hard time. Both protagonists are suffering, and throughout the book family members and friends are taken away. Marie-Laure loses for example her father, Madame Manec and her uncle Etienne. Losing so many close ones makes her vulnerable, but she keeps telling herself to keep faith in a safe return from her father. Werner also deals with the tragedies of war. For example he sees how his friend Frederick is almost beaten to death, and other friends from his school died, or are suffering from wounds. The tragedies of war are noticeable in the mindset of the characters. For example, after the death of madame Manec, Marie-Laure wanted to join the French resistance, this is a change in her mindset.
Motive
The most important motive in All The Light We Cannot See is light. Marie-Laure obviously can’t see light anymore because she is blind. But light is also a symbol of hope. “Light at the end of a tunnel.” Is a well-known saying.
For Von Rumpel and Werner there isn’t much light (hope) left. They lost the war and felt guilty over the war. While Werner was imprisoned, he fell ill, and feeling that everything was against him he committed suicide. For Von Rumpel the prospects also looked negative, as he still suffered from cancer and would die soon.
Marie-Laure still has hope, there is still a future. In the chapter ‘light’ Marie-Laure became blind recently. She thinks she isn’t able to take her father back home, but after the skies cleared up she knew the way. A sign of light, and there is hope again. Another example of a sign of light is after Daniel and Marie-Laure have fled, and they have reached the house where they were planning to stay but found it destroyed, there was lightning (a sign of light) and after that Daniel sees a hotel where they could stay.
Symbolism
Blindness
I discovered four symbols in this novel. The first symbol is blindness. Marie-Laure can’t see a thing but she sees the terrible things the Germans are creating. Werner isn’t blind, but helps the German army with the invasion of Europe. He doesn’t see how bad the Germans are because of the propaganda they are using, just like what happens in North-Korea today.
Sea of flames
The second symbol is the diamond called The Sea of Flames. It is said that the owner of the diamond will have eternal life, but all his loved ones will die. Von Rumpel is very interested in this diamond because of his terminal cancer. He leaves his family behind for his quest. But imagine, if you live forever, but no-one loves you, there is nothing left to live for, so I think the diamond symbolizes that life isn’t anything worth fighting for without the ones you love.
Models
The third symbol are the models of Paris and Saint-Malo. The models are made for Marie-Laure to know the city, and find her way. I think they simplify the complicated world. In Paris you can’t predict when it’s safe to cross a street so the model is just a simplification of the reality, but life is very unpredictable. Also, simplifying isn’t always useful, because the model is useless after the whole city has been bombed.
Radio
The fourth symbol is the radio. Being able to have contact over the radio, resembles seeing each other in a way. A radio connects people from all over the world. Werner is really handy with radios and went to war with his skills. The two storylines were only connected to each other by the radio, but later on the two protagonists meet in real life, and Werner saves Marie-Laure’s life because of the radio broadcasts he has heard.
Narrator
Doerr has chosen to write the book from a third person perspective. The narrator knows everything, most notably all the thoughts are known, but you never read “I, mine” etc. An example of reading the thoughts, is “She seems short; she wears blocky, heavy shoes. Hers is a low voice, full of pebbles, a sailor’s voice or a smoker’s. “(pag. 120) The reader creates his own imagination of how madame Manec looks, and what her voice is like. You can imagine how it looks like. Marie-Laure is blind, and by getting in her mind , you are feeling blind yourself, and getting the information that Marie-Laure gets.
Style
Anthony Doerr doesn’t make long sentences, there are a lot of dialogues. Doerr writes very poetically. He uses flash-forwards, I think to make the reader curious, because when you are reading about Von Rumpel in 1944, and about Von Rumpel in 1942, you want to know how he got there.
My opinion
I really love war stories. I’m almost obsessed with World War II, so I had high expectations. I had a hard time reading the book, because it started very slowly. The ending was also not as expected. It wasn’t the happy ending like in many tales, which I expected. However, I loved the ending, because it is realistic I think. After the war everything wasn’t good again.
The high amount of pages for only two stars made me hope it would be easy to read, but Doerr used a lot of poetic writing, which I don’t understand all of the time. I also expected a lot more scenes with Marie-Laure and Werner together, In my opinion is it very late that they met only in the last 100 pages, and unfortunately, they didn’t spend a lot of time together. I felt not really happy at the ending because I didn’t expect that Werner would die, I loved the character, and felt really attracted to him. So in conclusion: I liked the book, it is written great and I think most people fond of literature would love it, but I am not that type so I hoped it could have had another ending.
Assignment 2
1. Describe the alternatives the main character had when confronted with the main problem.
Asses the alternatives and the choice(s) the main character finally made.
Werner got the opportunity to go to a school to learn more about science. After he fixed the radio of a Nazi in his orphanage.
Option 1: Decline the invitation, and become a miner just like most of the boys, it is what was expected of the boys. It would not be the best future possible with his talents, but he could stay with his sister, frau Elena and his friends.
Option 2: Also decline the invitation, and Werner could go working as an engineer in town, save some money, and study physics for example or something else that has to deal with science, and go working in a lab for the greater good of science. Maybe becoming a great scientist and help a lot of other people/kids in the science.
Option 3: Go to school, learn everything about science, and study more to become a great scientist.
Option 4: Go to school, learn everything about science at this age, and maybe he would be recognized as a great scientist and would get a job in a laboratory. He would become one of the greatest scientist of the world and earn lots of money from it.
Werner choose to go to school, he got recognized, but his talents were used on the side of the german army.