“All The Light We Cannot See Quotes and Analysis” is a pretty trending Google search in NSW and Victoria right now (and for good reason). While Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is both beautiful and profound, it is also incredibly complex, a fact that Australian curriculum authorities like to neglect when squeezing it into a single term of your Year 12 studies!

Okay, so the book is long, I’ll just watch the movie instead, right? Wrong. The recent Netflix live-action adaptation is rife with plot deviations, overacting, and cringe-worthy writing, making it a rather unappealing study tool. Luckily for you, in this ultimate guide, you will find Matrix’s list of the novel’s best quotes, as well as entire paragraphs of free technique analysis! And, if you persist to the very end, you might just find a free ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ HSC or VCE essay ready for you to download!

Before we begin, please note that the page numbers cited in this guide correspond with FOURTH Estate, London‘s publication of the novel, ISBN: 978-0-00-754869-9 (the cover of this edition is showcased above!). If you are reading from a different publication of the novel, your page numbers may differ slightly.

Finally, before we jump straight into those quotes, let’s briefly revisit the plot of the novel. Of course, if you’ve just put the book down and don’t need the refresher, use the navigation glossary below to skip straight to the section you prefer!

Synopsis

Quotes & Analysis: Part 0 – 3

Quotes & Analysis: Part 4 – 8

Quotes & Analysis: Part 9 – 13

ATLWCS: A Synopsis

“All the Light We Cannot See”, or “ATLWCS”, by Anthony Doerr is a beautifully woven dual narrative set against the backdrop of World War II. The post-modern, historical fiction novel tells the story of two characters, Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig, whose paths eventually cross in the war-ravaged town of Saint-Malo, France on August 6th, 1944. The story makes use of lyrical, present-tense prose, and alternates between these two character’s perspectives, featuring time-skips and non-linear elements.

Marie-Laure, a young French girl, loses her sight at the age of six due to a congenital condition. Her father, Daniel LeBlanc, lovingly takes care of her and builds intricate scale models of their neighborhood in Paris to help her navigate the city and develop a rich understanding of her surroundings. Their bond is strengthened through their shared love for books, with Daniel reading to Marie-Laure from Jules Verne’s novels. Marie-Laure’s father works at the Museum of Natural History as a locksmith, where he often takes Marie-Laure for excursions.

Simultaneously, in a destitute mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig grows up an orphan, alongside his younger sister Jutta. While the siblings seem destined to join the rest of Zollverein as proletarian servants of the Reich, the Nazi’s soon discover that Werner has a unique talent for fixing radios. When the true extent of his scientific mind becomes apparent, Werner is invited to join a prestigious Nazi academy, the National Political Institute of Education at Schulpforta. Jutta objects, citing the cruelty of the Nazi’s, but Werner ignores her, drawn in by the promise of a future greater than that of a simple coal miner.

As the war escalates, Marie-Laure and her father are forced to flee Paris to evade the German occupation. Moreover, Daniel secretly carries with him a priceless and supposedly cursed diamond called the Sea of Flames, which he has been entrusted to safeguard by the Museum of Natural History. According to legend, the Goddess of the Earth created the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea. However, when it was plucked from a river by a greedy prince before it could reach the ocean, the Goddess of the Earth cursed the object: though anyone who held the Sea of Flames would be granted immortality, great suffering and death would befall all those around them.

Though the curse is largely considered a myth, a very real danger surrounds the object. For one thing, it is priceless, with a speculated worth of over five Eiffel Towers. Not only that, but unbeknownst to Daniel, Nazi gemologist Reinhold von Rumpel is relentlessly searching for this valuable artifact.

Upon arriving in Saint Malo, a port town in Northern France, Marie-Laure and her father take up residency at the latter’s uncle’s home. While Etienne is rumoured to be crazy, having not left his house in over twenty years, Marie-Laure quickly takes a liking to both him and his housekeeper, Madame Manec. Shortly after their arrival, Marie-Laure’s father begins constructing a model replica of Saint Malo, similar to the one he created for his daughter of their home in Paris. While Marie-Laure assumes the model is for similar navigational purposes, Daniel secretly hides the Sea of Flames inside.

Meanwhile, the Nazi academy at Schulpforta quickly recognises Werner’s talents. While he is praised for his success in tracking down radio transmissions during field tests, Werner cannot shake the feeling that Jutta is disapproving of his choices, even from afar. This shame reaches a zenith when Werner’s close friend, Frederick, is almost beaten to death by his fellow academy students. When Frederick doesn’t return to the school, Werner is consumed by guilt, soon discovering that Frederick has suffered brain damage and a permanent loss of cognitive function. Though Werner later visits Frederick at his home in Berlin, the boy doesn’t recognise him; indeed, Werner’s friend, the compassionate, inquisitive young boy with a staunch love of ornithology, is gone forever.

Back in Saint Malo, Marie-Laure is told by her father that the Museum of Natural History has requested him in Paris. He promises his daughter he will return to Saint Malo shortly, however, he is intercepted on his journey and interned in a German war prison. In his absence, Marie-Laure begins working alongside Madame Manec in support of the resistance. Despite Etienne’s hesitancy, Madame Manec has mobilised an army of her most unassuming elderly compatriots to covertly thwart the Nazis in Saint Malo. Eventually Etienne acquiesces, and agrees to help. Marie-Laure begins lending her efforts as well, collecting bread from the local bakery that has codes baked into the dough. These codes are then transmitted by Etienne to any proximate allies via a large, long-distance radio transmitter hidden in his attic. This system works well and is a source of empowerment for all members of the household, until Madame Manec suddenly grows sickly and dies.

Werner, now a soldier, is sent on missions to track down illegal radio transmissions for the Nazis. During one such mission, however, Werner wrongly attributes a radio signal to a civilian household, and an innocent family is killed. Werner begins to experience hallucinations of one of the young girls that was killed, and grows to resent his role in aiding the Nazi regime. On one of their next assignments, Werner and his team are sent to Saint Malo to locate the source of an illegal radio transmission: that of Etienne himself.

Meanwhile, during one of her secret bread collection missions, Marie-Laure narrowly escapes the clutches of von Rumpel, who has tracked down the Sea of Flames to her location. When Marie-Laure fails to return from this mission promptly, Etienne overcomes his agoraphobia and leaves his home for the first time in over two decades to find her. Though Etienne quickly finds Marie-Laure in a secret ocean grotto unharmed, he grows resentful of his decision to ever put Marie-Laure in danger, and forbids her from leaving the house. From this point forward, Etienne commits to undertaking the bread collection himself.

When Werner arrives in Saint Malo, he quickly identifies the location of Etienne’s illegal transmission, however, he chooses not to inform his team, an act he knows is treason. When he goes to investigate Etienne’s home alone, he sees Marie-Laure from afar and immediately becomes mesmerised by her elegance and beauty. Werner remains ensorcelled by the girl until she eventually disappears down the street, never saying a word to her.

Shortly after this incident, fliers are dropped on the city of Saint Malo, urging residents to flee. Marie-Laure waits diligently in Etienne’s home, however, hours pass, and Etienne does not return. Not only that, but thunderous echoes and the smell of smoke inform Marie-Laure that the city around her is being devastated by bombings. To make matters worse, Marie-Laure hears a stranger enter Etienne’s home a few floors beneath her. It soon becomes apparent that the imposter barring her escape is none other than von Rumpel himself. Having just discovered the Sea of Flames in a hidden compartment of her father’s model of Saint Malo, Marie-Laure quickly infers what he is searching for.

While Marie-Laure waits for five days in the attic, behind a trap door designed to conceal Etienne’s illegal radio, she quickly runs out of water and food rationings. During this time, she decides to read aloud from a braille book that was gifted to her by her father and Etienne, transmitting her narrations via Etienne’s radio alongside calls for help. However, Marie-Laure soon gives up hope that anyone can hear her, and decides to confront von Rumpel, who has not moved from downstairs. Marie-Laure turns the radio on its highest volume and alerts the intruder of her presence.

While this catastrophe is unfolding, Werner and his fellow soldiers are trapped in the collapsed cellar of the Hotel of Bees, a Saint Malo hotel turned Nazi fort that was quickly caved in by the bombings. After Werner manages to escape, he attempts to find Marie-Laure, whom he had heard reading aloud via radio transmission. Werner intercepts von Rumpel in the attic, mere metres from Marie-Laure, and kills him. When Marie-Laure reveals herself to Werner, the two share the last of Marie-Laure’s rations, Madame Manec’s only remaining can of preserved peaches. Werner imagines a distant future in which he is having a quiet dinner with Marie-Laure before helping her evacuate the fallen city.

As the pair flee the city’s ruins, Marie-Laure insists that Werner take her to a familiar ocean grotto where she deposits the Sea of Flames in the water. Shortly after parting ways with Marie-Laure, Werner is arrested as a war criminal and quickly falls ill. In a state of delirium, Werner exits the medical tent in which he is being treated by American and Canadian infantry and is promptly killed by a German landmine.

Marie-Laure, on the other hand, is reunited with Etienne and, after the war, the two move to her old apartment in Paris. Marie-Laure never hears from her father again, finding only a German doctor’s logbook recording his contraction of Influenza in 1943. The story concludes with Marie-Laure as an old woman and grandmother, sitting beside her grandson as he plays a video-game. She has had a successful, happy, though at times melancholic life, experiencing two transient loves, and managing a mollusk laboratory at the Museum of Natural History. In the final moments of the book, Marie-Laure reflects on the thousands of invisible radio-waves travelling through the skies of Paris, and indeed, across the world. She wonders if her father, Madame Manec, Etienne, and Werner flock the skies, invisible, too.

Quotes & Analysis: Part 0 – 3

The Boy

Her Majesty, the Austrians call their cannon, and for the past week these men have tended to it the way worker bees might tend to a queen. They’ve fed her oils, repainted her barrel, lubricated her wheels; they’ve arranged sandbags at her feet like offerings.

Page 8

Doerr uses an analogy to liken the Austrian infantry’s devotion to their cannon to a worker bee’s devotion to their “queen bee”. In fact, the Austrians have even personified their cannon with the regal title “Her Majesty”. This suggests that, like the worker bee, the Austrians no longer possess the capacity for individual or critical thought, and are slaves to one single-minded mission; fiercely protecting and serving their “queen”.

Ultimately, the “Hotel of Bees” functions as a motif that warns of the dangers of hive-mind mentality. As is epitomised in Werner’s own character arc, Doerr reminds readers that warfare is not the product of evil, but of good people failing to think individually and critically, but instead conforming to the social currents of those around them.

Zollverein

Every morning he ties his shoes, packs newspaper inside his coat as insulation against the cold, and begins interrogating the world. He captures snowflakes, tadpoles, hibernating frogs; he coaxes bread from bakers with none to sell; he regularly appears in the kitchen with fresh milk for the babies. He makes things too: paper boxes, crude biplanes, toy boats with working rudders.

Page 24

Doerr’s use of cumulative listing, in which his syntax is abundant with commas and semicolons, accentuates just how many inquisitive missions Werner undertakes every single day. Werner’s initial characterisation suggests he has a uniquely curious mind, and his entry into the world of science has a rather innocent impetus: Werner simply wants to explore everything about the world around him, whether that be snowflakes or tadpoles.

This childhood purity is ultimately subverted in the novel, when the Nazi regime cleverly weaponises Werner’s curiosity and transforms his mind into an instrument of war. Ultimately, the narrative antithesis between Werner’s older and younger self functions as an instance of parallelism that reflects just how insidiously the allure of power and social prestige can corrupt even the most beautiful minds.

Key Pound

The murex Dr. Geffard keeps on his desk can entertain her for a half hour, the hollow spines, the ridged whorls, the deep entrance; it’s a forest of spikes and caves and textures; it’s a kingdom.

Page 30

While this particular chapter is largely dedicated to Marie-Laure’s struggle with blindness, Doerr is quick to offer up an ironic antithesis; Marie-Laure is remarkably perceptive. Here, tactile imagery is used to describe the intricate “forest of spikes and caves” that make a carinaria shell that has captured Marie-Laure’s attention. In metaphorically depicting the shell as an entire kingdom, Marie-Laure reveals that, in spite of her lack of vision, she is incredibly perceptive and attentive to detail, a fact that becomes increasingly apparent as the novel progresses.

Ultimately, Doerr reveals that vision is only one facet that allows human beings to see, but that true insight is equally the product of curiosity and imagination.

Radio

He is about to hand the earphone to Jutta when—clear and unblemished, about halfway down the coil—he hears the quick, drastic strikes of a bow dashing across the strings of a violin. […] He blinks; he has to swallow back tears. The parlor looks the same as it always has: two cribs beneath two Latin crosses, dust floating in the open mouth of the stove, a dozen layers of paint peeling off the baseboards. A needlepoint of Frau Elena’s snowy Alsatian village above the sink. Yet now there is music. As if, inside Werner’s head, an infinitesimal orchestra has stirred to life.

Page 33

In this paragraph, Doerr illustrates the paradox of invisible light. The striking auditory imagery of sudden violin music is juxtaposed with the empty parlor of Werner’s home, which remains visually unchanged. This contrast elucidates the reason for Werner’s incredulity; how could it be that an invisible orchestra is playing in his home? Doerr reminds us that radio waves, the kind that enable humanity to broadcast messages, even music, are actually light waves, albeit invisible to the human eye.

This motif, best encapsulated in the novel’s title, “All the Light We Cannot See”, suggests that many things, beautiful, wonderful, and fearful things, exist outside the purview of human perception. The gradual indoctrination of a nation by a charismatic leader, the power of the human imagination, love, these are things that cannot be seen, and yet, are so very potent that they can shape and destroy entire lives.

This scene also serves as another instance of characterisation for Werner; he is fascinated by the scientific questions that escape his understanding. Moreover, it demonstrates the incredible power of technology, the same technology that Hitler weaponises to mobilise an entire nation, simply by broadcasting his voice.

Light

They walk up their street now, she is sure of it. One step behind her, her father tilts his head up and gives the sky a huge smile. Marie-Laure knows this even though her back is to him, even though he says nothing, even though she is blind—Papa’s thick hair is wet from the snow and standing in a dozen angles off his head, and his scarf is draped asymmetrically over his shoulders, and he’s beaming up at the falling snow.

Page 41

Here, though Marie-Laure is entirely blind at this stage in the novel, Doerr uses visual imagery to describe her perception of her father’s smile. Though she cannot actually “see” her father, her intimate knowledge of him, coupled with her empathy and vibrant imagination, allow her to construct the image of him “beaming up at the falling snow” with great veracity.

Ultimately, this paradoxical insight exemplifies that sight is only one faculty that allows humans to see. Ironically, though Marie-Laure is blind, the sections of the text focalised through her perspective contain some of the richest instances of visual imagery, and some of the most profound insights on the natural world, and indeed, the human condition.

Our Flag Flutters Before Us

Their salutes are comical; their outfits verge on ridiculous. But Frau Elena watches the boys with wary eyes: not so long ago they were feral toddlers skulking in their cots and crying for their mothers. Now they’ve become adolescent thugs with split knuckles and postcards of the führer folded into their shirt pockets.

Page 42

Here, Doerr juxtaposes the “feral” outcries of toddlers with the thuggish behaviour of the boys of the Hitler Youth to highlight how quickly children can turn into Nazis. Ultimately, Frau Elena’s concern is an allusion to the insidious nature of Nazi indoctrination. Indeed, the Hitler Youth was an organisation that weaponised the naivety of young children and their incessant concern with “fitting in” to transform an entire generation of boys into Nazis, before they even became men.

Around the World in Eighty Days

And there is no darkness, not the kind they imagine. Everything is composed of webs and lattices and upheavals of sound and texture. […] Color – that’s another thing people don’t expect. In her imagination, in her dreams, everything has color. The museum buildings are beige, chestnut, hazel. Its scientists are lilac and lemon yellow and fox brown. Piano chords loll in the speaker of the wireless in the guard station, projecting rich blacks and complicated blues down the hall toward the key pound. Church bells send arcs of bronze careening off the windows. Bees are silver; pigeons are ginger and auburn and occasionally golden. The huge cypress trees she and her father pass on their morning walk are shimmering kaleidoscopes, each needle a polygon of light.

Page 44-45

Here, Doerr uses colourful visual imagery to characterise Marie-Laure’s internal representation of the world. Paradoxically, it is not dark, as one would assume, but rich with vibrant colours and textures constructed by Marie-Laure’s imagination. Ultimately, this reflects the human mind’s immense capacity to construct and envision unseen realities. Moreover, it substantiates Marie-Laure’s own unique perceptual talents, talents that reflect a neuroplastic mind that has compensated for a lack of sight in rather miraculous ways.

The second gift is heavy, wrapped in paper and twine. Inside is a massive spiral-bound book. In Braille. “They said it’s for boys. Or very adventurous girls.” She can hear him smiling.

Page 45

The metaphor by which Marie-Laure can paradoxically “hear” her father smiling once again explicates her profound perceptual abilities. Though Marie-Laure is blind, her interpersonal connection with her father’s mannerisms is sufficient that she can infer his facial expression simply by the tone of his voice. This intimate moment accentuates the deep love between Marie-Laure and her father, and the profound resilience of the human condition, whereby the imagination can overcome one’s loss of sight.

The Professor

The brain is locked in total darkness, of course, children, says the voice. It floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in light, And yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light. It brims with color and movement.

Page 48

In Etienne and Henri’s scientific radio broadcast, Doerr uses a scientific paradox to instantiate one of the core themes of the novel: invisible light. Though we see the world in vivid colour, the brain, the organ responsible for constructing our experience of reality, has no direct access to colour or light at all, only biological signals received from the optic nerve. Doerr uses this improbable fact to remind us that the light we see and experience is simply a reconstruction in our minds.

In other words, we don’t directly experience reality, but recreate it in our minds based on messages sent from our retinas. And there’s another catch: our retinas are limited in scope, and can only detect a small portion of all the light that exists, making our perception of the world highly limited. This idea is later expounded upon on Page 53 when the broadcast states that “mathematically, all of light is invisible”.

In the manner of an allegory, Doerr cautions readers to consider the limits of human perception. What are all the beautiful, powerful, and deadly things that we cannot see, that exist beyond the purview of our senses, and yet, shape our lives? What unseen things that make up the realities of Werner and Marie-Laure? Why is Werner so obstinate in his inability to see the evil of the Nazi regime? Moreover, how is it that Marie-Laure is able to see sound in colour, see kingdoms in shells, even see her father’s smile, all while blind?

The Principles of Mechanics

The air swarms with so much that is invisible! How he wishes he had eyes to see the ultraviolet, eyes to see the infrared, eyes to see radio waves crowding the darkening sky, flashing through the walls of the house.

Page 57-58

Here, Doerr’s zoomorphic diction in using the word “swarm” likens the appearance of invisible radio waves to that of a large, dense group of flying insects. Werner’s scientific mind is imagining what radio waves might look like, if only they could be seen, and the image he produces is potent.

Doerr exemplifies a common fallacy of the human condition: our partiality to the visible; we rely too heavily on what we can perceive, and assume that that which we cannot see must not be very important. After all, how can it be, if it has no power to change the appearance of the natural world around us? Werner, however, well-versed in the science of radio transmission, understands the power of radio technology.

Accordingly, the metaphorical image he produces is perhaps a more accurate representation of the potency of radio transmission than can be captured by the human eye. Doerr suggests that radio waves are everywhere, swarming all around us, allowing human beings to command, converse, and sing to one another, even across continents. This moment parallels Marie-Laure’s own visualisation of radio waves offered in the final moments of the book.

Bigger Faster Brighter

Radio: it ties a million ears to a single mouth. Out of loudspeakers all around Zollverein, the staccato voice of the Reich grows like some imperturbable tree; its subjects lean toward its branches as if toward the lips of God. And when God stops whispering, they become desperate for someone who can put things right.

Page 63

The metaphor by which “a million ears” are tied to a “single mouth” exemplifies the power of radio to mobilise all of Germany under one voice: Hitler’s. Moreover, the simile wherein this voice grows like an “imperturbable tree” suggests that no individual has the power to shake or stunt the proliferation of the Nazi’s propaganda campaign as it takes hold of Germany.

Doerr uses this analogy to reflect that, much like a tree, the creeping influence of the Nazi regime is growing gradually and insidiously.

Entrance Exam

From the top, the crimson flag with its white circle and black cross looks unexpectedly small. A pale ring of faces stares up. It’s even hotter up here, torrid, and the smell of perspiration makes him light-headed. Without hesitating, Werner steps to the edge of the platform and shuts his eyes and jumps. He hits the flag in its exact center, and the boys holding its edges give a collective groan.

Page 116

While an unassuming passage, this moment of Werner’s initiation into the Nazi machine is rich with symbolism. While a subtle allusion, the flag upon which the initiates are expected to land on is actually crested with the Nazi party’s infamous swastika. As Werner leaps from a dangerous height, eyes shut and without hesitation, he is expected to trust the swastika itself to catch him.

This symbolism elucidates that the Nazi regime is not trying to foster critical thought or insight in its recruits, but rather blind obedience and undying fidelity to their regime (even at great personal risk). Indeed, the recruits are not taught to think, or question authority, but rather, to jump at a moment’s notice and simply have faith in the Nazi cause to catch them.

Don’t Tell Lies

“Is it right,” Jutta says, “to do something only because everyone else is doing it?” Doubts: slipping in like eels. Werner shoves them back. Jutta is barely twelve years old, still a child.

Page 133

Doerr’s simile, likening doubt to eels, exemplifies the forceful nature of Jutta’s accusatory question. Jutta challenge’s Werner’s conformity to Nazi ideology, and Werner has no good justification for it. Moreover, this vicious zoomorphic rendering suggests that Werner’s doubts, if confronted, are able to hurt him, which only truth has the power to do. On some level, Werner knows Jutta is right.

However, in a metaphorical extension of this simile, Werner “shoves [the eels] back” indicating that though he is partially aware of the wrongfulness of his actions, he is unwilling to confront this truth. Ultimately, Doerr reveals that, at times, evildoers are not conscious of their own malice, but are rather complicit in their own indoctrination, actively lying to themselves and circumnavigating opportunities for introspection in order to never have to confront their own immorality.

Jungmänner

“[…] you will all surge in the same direction at the same pace toward the same cause. You will forgo comforts; you will live by duty alone. You will eat country and breathe nation.”

Page 137

The anaphoric repetition of “you will ” establishes a commanding diction saturated with high modal imperatives. Clearly, the recruits have forfeited their right to autonomy; their duties and desires are no longer theirs. The metaphor whereby Werner and fellow initiates are expected to “eat country” and “breathe nation” indicates that the Nazi party alone should be the source of both their hunger and sustenance. Ultimately, this instance of spoken propaganda epitomises the ruthless, autocratic singularity of the Nazi regime.

Blackbirds

“It’s only numbers, cadet,” Hauptmann says, a favorite maxim. “Pure math. You have to accustom yourself to thinking that way.”

Page 184

While Werner is encouraged to consider his work as “only numbers”, this euphemism veneers a far more disturbing subtext. Werner’s work is not just numbers. He is tracking broadcasts; he is tracking people. People that will be murdered, added to the death tally of the Nazi war machine.

Ultimately, Doerr makes a subtle historical allusion to the use of numbers as a dehumanising war-time device. Just as the prisoners of Nazi concentration camps were referred to by numbers and not names, both systemically and linguistically denied their personhood, so too are Werner’s own victims. Ultimately, Werner’s colleagues encourage the use of a “purely” mathematical mind in order to obstruct Werner’s view of his own moral complicity in the murder of human beings. For Werner, his job will simply be ‘doing math’, an impetus far more easily justified.

Bath

That’s how it feels right now, he thinks, kneeling beside her, rinsing her hair: as though his love for his daughter will outstrip the limits of his body. The walls could fall away, even the whole city, and the brightness of that feeling would not wane.

Page 189

Here, Doerr juxtaposes a seemingly prosaic moment in the life of Daniel with an inordinately profound expression of love. Though Daniel is simply washing Marie-Laure’s hair, his love for his daughter in this moment is metaphorically described as so overwhelming that it cannot even be confined within his own body.

Daniel’s love is also characterised as “bright”, an instance of visual imagery that suggests it is a kind of light, calling to mind Doerr’s ‘invisible light’ motif. Doerr reminds audiences that unconditional love, though imperceptible to the human eye, is enormously potent. Though even Marie-Laure is unable to see her father’s enormous love in this quotidian moment, it is a feeling that overwhelms Daniel in his totality.

Ultimately, Doerr reminds audiences that love is powerful, and that even invisible feelings like this can entirely modulate a person’s experience of reality. For Marie-Laure, this moment is simply another bath. For Daniel, it is an almost ineffable, boundless experience of fatherly affection.

Quotes & Analysis: Part 4 – 8

January Recess

“Your problem, Werner,” says Frederick, “is that you still believe you own your life.”

Page 223

Frederick introduces a rather fatalistic paradox to Werner: the idea that the boys’ lives do not belong to them. While this notion stings on its own, Doerr is clever to attribute this line to Frederick, Werner’s character foil.

Throughout the novel, Frederick is characterised as highly intelligent, impassioned, and compassionate, but, unlike Werner, he is also unafraid of peculiarity and non-conformity; in fact, he regularly places his own moral code before his academy training, insofar as to readily disobey direct orders. Accordingly, in having Frederick of all characters willingly surrender his autonomy and dreams, Doerr elucidates the Nazi regime’s capacity to rob even the most valiant, freethinking boys of their individuality.

Nadel Im Heuhaufen

He has pleased his professor after all; the transceivers work; he is out in the luminous, starlit night feeling the stinging glow of brandy flow into his gut […]. All the next day the pleasure of his success lingers in Werner’s blood, the memory of how it seemed almost holy to him to walk beside big Volkheimer back to the castle.

Page 246-247

Doerr’s diction in this passage is rich with light imagery, words like “luminous”, “starlit”, and “glow” characterising Werner’s experience of having pleased his commanders as radiant. Moreover, the symbolism of brandy is used to construct an interesting parallel. Just as Werner is experiencing true inebriation, he is also figuratively drunk on the approval of his superiors, to the extent that his ecstasy is characterised as “almost holy”.

This biblical allusion likens Werner’s pride, having had the honour of walking beside Volkheimer a victor, as being an almost spiritual experience. Ultimately, this passage exemplifies Werner’s obsequious hunger to please and belong, and the instant, uncritical, and enormous satisfaction that comes with accomplishing this.

While Werner commits and allows inexcusable acts throughout the novel, his impetus is clearly not one of pre-deliberated evil, but rather relates to an emotional need to be useful and valued, one instilled in him by the “enforced asceticism” (Page 133) of the Nazi chain of command.

You Have Other Friends

Werner is succeeding. He is being loyal. He is being what everybody agrees is good. And yet every time he wakes and buttons his tunic, he feels he is betraying something.

Page 250

The juxtaposition of positively connoted words like “succeeding”, “loyal”, and “good” with the concept of betrayal highlights the dissonance within Werner. He is unsettled by a growing feeling of disingenuousness, but cannot place its origin.

However, Doerr is very clever to use highly equivocal diction in this passage: Doer claims Werner is succeeding, but not what he is succeeding at; he expresses Werner’s loyalty, but refrains from articulating who Werner is being loyal to; he suggests that Werner is doing what “everybody agrees is good”, but refuses to explain who “everybody” is, and how they came to this seemingly unanimous agreement.

Ultimately, this clever use of third person limited narration reflect’s Werner’s own process of forced ignorance and denial. Werner deliberately labels his successes in vague terms, because any real scrutiny into what he is doing and who he is doing it for might unveil the truly iniquitous nature of Werner’s loyalty to the Nazi regime, a moral burden he is not prepared to confront.

Intoxicated

It seems to Werner as if all the boys around him are intoxicated. As if, at every meal, the cadets fill their tin cups not with the cold mineralized water of Schulpforta but with a spirit that leaves them glazed and dazzled, as if they ward off a vast and inevitable tidal wave of anguish only by staying forever drunk on rigor and exercise and gleaming boot leather.

Page 262-263

Much like the brandy symbolism discussed in an earlier passage, Doerr once gain uses inebriation as an analogy to characterise the “dazzling” effects of the Nazi regime’s cadet program. Instead of thinking critically and morally reflecting on the nature of their duties, the boys are entirely dissuaded from introspection. Rather, the expectation is all cadets remain so singularly “drunk” on the prospect of polished boots, rigour, and exercise that they cannot think independently at all.

We are a volley of bullets, sing the newest cadets, we are cannonballs. We are the tip of the sword.

Page 263

Here, the anaphoric repetition of the collective pronoun “we” accentuates how the Nazi cadets are not individuals, but simply components of a much larger machine. Moreover, each clause offers a new, violent metaphor depicting the nature of this collective. Be it “bullets”, “cannonballs”, or “swords”, each one connotes a potent, directed attack, highlighting the singularity and strength of the Nazi regime to which the cadets belong.

While an instance of propaganda intended to amass strength and loyalty among the boys, it also ironically alludes to their lack of autonomy. In each case, the boys are objectified, likened to a weapon that requires a human mind and human hand to direct.

Ultimately, this exemplifies how Nazi recruits are stripped of their autonomy and weaponised, turned into violent, unthinking instruments to be operated by their superiors. This partiality toward doing, not thinking, is further substantiated later on the same page when the recruits are instructed that “minds are not to be trusted”.

Everything Poisoned

For Werner, doubts turn up regularly. Racial purity, political purity— Bastian speaks to a horror of any sort of corruption, and yet, Werner wonders in the dead of night, isn’t life a kind of corruption? A child is born, and the world sets in upon it. Taking things from it, stuffing things into it. Each bite of food, each particle of light entering the eye—the body can never be pure. But this is what the commandant insists upon, why the Reich measures their noses, clocks their hair color.

Page 276

Werner poses the question of whether purity is possible, and in an instance of hypophora, immediately answers it. Werner’s deliberation ultimately reveals that purity is a flawed construct, as from the moment an individual is born, they begin a process of exchange with the natural world around them, ingesting food and absorbing light.

Doerr likens this process to a sort of “corruption”, problematising the Reich’s notion of racial purity. Ultimately, this moment is one of the first instances wherein Werner clearly questions the ideological pillars of the Nazi regime.

The Frog Cooks

“Do you know what happens, Etienne,” says Madame Manec from the other side of the kitchen, “when you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water?” “You will tell us, I am sure.” “It jumps out. But do you know what happens when you put the frog in a pot of cool water and then slowly bring it to a boil? You know what happens then?” Marie-Laure waits. The potatoes steam. Madame Manec says, “The frog cooks.”

Page 285

In this bitter apologue, Madame Manec castigates Etienne’s inaction against the Nazis. The fate of the frog functions as a warning; while Etienne is happy to remain safe and complacent while Germany occupies his city, Madame Manec suggests that conditions will slowly worsen, and Etienne will incrementally give up more and more of his personal freedoms until it is too late to fight back. Ultimately, this allegory suggests that human beings are highly sensitive to immediate danger, but threats that arise slowly can evade our awareness entirely.

Volkheimer

[…] in nightmares Werner watches the shapes of boys close over Frederick, though when he draws closer, Frederick transforms into Jutta, and she stares at Werner with accusation while the boys carry off her limbs one by one.

Page 330

This brutal nightmare, rich with violent visual imagery depicting the dismemberment of Jutta, symbolises Werner’s rising guilt. However, Werner is yet to directly confront his wrongdoings. While the reason for his guilt largely continues to evade Werner’s conscious understanding, this does not prevent it from infiltrating his dreams. It is possible Doerr is suggesting that even when individuals actively evade confronting their wrongdoings, it is near impossible to evade one’s own conscience.

Grotto

But the grotto itself comprises its own slick universe, and inside this universe spin countless galaxies: here, in the upturned half of a single mussel shell, lives a barnacle and a tiny spindle shell occupied by a still smaller hermit crab. And on the shell of the crab? A yet smaller barnacle. And on that barnacle?

Page 341

While Marie-Laure is indeed completely blind, she is able to see the grotto for what it is, a collection of entire worlds, an insight that no one else in the novel accomplishes. The metaphor likening the grotto to a “slick universe” spinning with “countless galaxies” exemplifies the infinitely detailed microcosms that exist all around us that, ironically, seeing people are often the first to overlook.

Moreover, the repetitive use of hypophora suggests a profound scientific principle: with each discovery, there is another question to be asked; there is something more to be discovered. Ultimately, this characterises Marie-Laure as an incredibly inquisitive and perceptive young girl. Moreover, it reminds readers to practise curiosity and a directed attention to detail, because the world around us is truly beautiful, if only we choose to see it.

While the entire world of the novel is being consumed by human greed and the fabricated allegiances of WW2, the natural world continues to thrive, unperturbed, indifferent. Ultimately, this suggests a hamartia in the human condition that separates us from the animal kingdom: our minds. Though our capacity for language, complex thought, and imagination is beautiful, with it, we also divide ourselves. We create friends and enemies, categorise those around us as either “us” or “them”, and through this process of intellectualisation, we manufacture conflict. We create ideology, ideology creates difference, and difference creates war.

In this small moment, Marie-Laure is able to escape such anthropocentric conflict, simply by exploring the tactile wonders of a barnacle. Moreover, the world this barnacle occupies seems strangely liberated from every catastrophe the human world has offered her. Through this symbolic appreciation, Doerr presents a rather hopeful aspersion: war is artifice, one that humans create, and one that humans have the power to diminish, deconstruct, and destroy.

Fever

[…] the network of trenches and artillery below shows itself very clearly for a moment, and Werner feels he is gazing down into the circuitry of an enormous radio, each soldier down there an electron flowing single file down his own electrical path, with no more say in the matter than an electron has.

Page 355

Here, Doerr’s analogical comparison of trench warfare to radio circuitry explicates Werner’s most enormous epiphany: like electrons, the soldiers of the Nazi regime entirely lack autonomy. These soldiers are simply following their assigned path with no macroscopic understanding of what greater purpose they serve.

Moreover, in using visual imagery to capture an aerial view of the Nazi regime’s figurative “circuitry”, Doerr quite literally shrinks the individual significance of the soldiers; indeed in this analogy, they are subatomic; elucidating their unimportance and lack of personhood. As is the case of an electron in a radio, these soldiers are not acknowledged, valued or appreciated; they exist only to contribute to the functioning of a larger machine.

In this moment, Werner finally acknowledges the lack of self-determination inherent to the Nazi cause, a machine he himself has been mindlessly serving. Moreover, this passage encourages readers to consider whether they themselves may be part of a larger machination beyond their immediate apprehension.

The Beams

It was enough when Werner was a boy, wasn’t it? A world of wildflowers blooming up through the shapes of rusty cast-off parts. A world of berries and carrot peels and Frau Elena’s fairy tales. Of the sharp smell of tar, and trains passing, and bees humming in the window boxes. String and spit and wire and a voice on the radio offering a loom on which to spin his dreams.

Page 389

Doerr suggests that in childhood, we experience bliss and even wonderment despite our physical confinement to a rather small and simple world. Doer reconstructs the beauty of Werner’s childhood through the use of visual, auditory and olfactory imagery. Wild flowers connote an untamed serenity, while the description of “berries” and “carrot peels” evoke a gustatory nostalgia. Finally, Werner’s attraction to radio, metaphorically depicted as a loom, highlights the seemingly endless possibilities before him.

However, Werner’s rhetorical question suggests his alienation from this contentment. The time when he was happy with a modest existence is but a fading memory to him. Today, he is driven by an endless hunger for scientific knowledge, and an ardent desire to please his superiors and make something of himself.

Accordingly, an edifying paradox emerges. Though in adulthood we chase enormous ambitions, spurred by our growing autonomy and immersion in an ever-complex (and, in this case, war-torn) world, this can cause us to lose sight of the simple beauties all around us. In this sense, Marie-Laure functions as Werner’s character foil. Despite her horrific experiences of war and loss, Marie-Laure is able to retain her sense of childlike wonder, as instantiated on Page 341.

Ultimately, Doerr elucidates that humans are easily tempted by the cultural currents around them that constantly demand that they prove their worth according to the social criterion of their zeitgeist. However, this can lead to an immense dissatisfaction and loss of personal identity, whereby individuals lose sight of the beauty (or, as Doerr might say, “the light”) all around them.

The Transmitter

To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness. Beneath your world of skies and faces and buildings exists a rawer and older world, a place where surface planes disintegrate and sounds ribbon in shoals through the air. Marie-Laure can sit in an attic high above the street and hear lilies rustling in marshes two miles away. She hears Americans scurry across farm fields, directing their huge cannons at the smoke of Saint-Malo; she hears families sniffling around hurricane lamps in cellars, crows hopping from pile to pile, flies landing on corpses in ditches; she hears the tamarinds shiver and the jays shriek and the dune grass burn; she feels the great granite fist, sunk deep into the earth’s crust, on which Saint-Malo sits, and the ocean teething at it from all four sides, and the outer islands holding steady against the swirling tides; she hears cows drink from stone troughs and dolphins rise through the green water of the Channel; she hears the bones of dead whales stir five leagues below, their marrow offering a century of food for cities of creatures who will live their whole lives and never once see a photon sent from the sun. She hears her snails in the grotto drag their bodies over the rocks.

Page 390-391

Doerr begins this paragraph with a paradox: “to shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness”. Doerr suggests that being blind is not simply a matter of being unable to see. Instead, for Marie-Laure, blindness is a rich immersion in a “rawer and older world”. The visual imagery, capturing the disintegration of surfaces and ribboning shoals of sound, creates a mystifying depiction of Marie-Laure’s world. While fluid and arcane to us, Doer goes on to exemplify Marie-Laure’s mastery of this seemingly nonsensical universe.

Doerr’s subsequent auditory descriptions are abundant, listed with the anaphoric repetition of “she hears”. This extensive accumulation of evocative sounds elucidates the sheer breadth of Marie-Laure’s world. These descriptions span the rustling of marshes two miles away, to the sound of whale bones stirring five leagues below the sea. With her sonic imagination alone, Marie-laure is able to manifest a universe more rich in imagery and detail than any other character in the book.

While some readers might criticise this totally “made-up” world as having no bearing on reality, Doerr uses scientific jargon to construct a veracious diction. Terms like “granite”, “earth’s crust”, “marrow”, and “photon” all remind readers that Marie-Laure virtually grew up in a natural history museum. Indeed, Marie-Laure’s world occupies the liminal space between extraordinary imagination, and scientific verisimilitude. Ultimately, Doerr suggests that Marie-Laure is perhaps the most perceptive character in the book. Her world is rich, detailed, informed, and beautiful, and her blindness is a potent gift that deserves no sympathy. Meanwhile, Marie-Laure’s character foil, Werner, a boy with perfect eyesight, seems to persist in utter blindness.

Quotes & Analysis: Part 9 – 13

Edge of the World

Over Volkheimer’s shoulder, through the cracked rear window of the truck shell, Werner watches a red-haired child in a velvet cape float six feet above the road. She passes through trees and road signs, veers around curves; she is as inescapable as a moon. […] the floating child pursues him through the countryside. Dead girl in the sky, dead girl out the window, dead girl three inches away. Two wet eyes and that third eye of the bullet hole never blinking.

Page 397

Here, the grotesque visual imagery of an omnipresent corpse personifies Werner’s guilt. Doerr describes the bullet hole as an unblinking third eye, the wound itself acting as a symbol of condemnation; the dead girl is an eternal witness to Werner’s crimes.

Moreover, the anaphoric repetition of the pejorative phrase “dead girl” accentuates the inescapability of Werner’s growing battle with guilt; it quite literally follows him wherever he looks.

Ultimately, Doerr suggests that the human condition is one of self-accountability, and that heinous crimes come at an enormous personal and moral cost, even when external accountability remains elusive.

“Clair De Lune”

Frederick said we don’t have choices, don’t own our lives, but in the end it was Werner who pretended there were no choices, Werner who watched Frederick dump the pail of water at his feet—I will not— Werner who stood by as the consequences came raining down. Werner who watched Volkheimer wade into house after house, the same ravening nightmare recurring over and over and over.

Page 407

Though written in the third person, Doerr focalises this epiphany from Werner’s perspective. In it, Werner finally and fully accepts his complicity in aiding the violence of the Nazi regime. The anaphoric repetition of “Werner” highlights his acknowledgement that he alone is to be held accountable for both his actions, and his inaction.

Moreover, polysyndeton and repetition are used in both “house after house” and “over and over and over” to exemplify just how many atrocities Werner chose to overlook. Ultimately, Doerr suggests that while humans are naturally predisposed to conformity, our subjugation to evil can only be actualised if we ourselves choose to partake in our own indoctrination.

Antenna

Werner heard the voice everyone was listening for, and what did he do? Lied. Committed treason. How many men might be in danger because of this? And yet when Werner remembers hearing that voice, when he remembers that song flooding his head, he trembles with joy.

Page 408

Hypophora is used here to exemplify the moment Werner’s allegiance shifts from Nazi Germany to Marie-Laure. Moreover, the short syntax of “Lied. Committed treason.” underscores the true gravity of Werner’s betrayal.

Importantly, the Nazi Wartime Special Penal Code (“Kriegssonderstrafrechtsverordnung”) designated a death sentence for crimes as little as criticism of the Nazi military; an act of treason committed by an officer on duty could only entail execution. Despite this mortal peril, Werner “trembles with joy”, suggesting the autonomous freedom to choose what one believes is good offers an impetus far greater than that perpetuated by fear or death.

Grotto

She crouches over her knees. She is the Whelk. Armored. Impervious.

Page 416

Throughout ATLWCS, “the Whelk” functions as a polysemous motif. First and foremost, it represents Marie-Laure’s love for marine biology, nurtured by her father’s museum excursions. Later, it is the codename Marie-Laure chooses for herself when supporting the French Resistance in Saint Malo. In this sense, it symbolises Marie-Laure’s resolve.

Moreover, “the Whelk” carries scientific connotations. Whelks are a kind of marine mollusc, known for their ability to attach firmly to the ground; and for their dense conical shells, which can withstand attacks from a host of otherwise deadly predators. For Marie-Laure, whelks symbolise stability and indestructibility. While the world around her is in constant turmoil, and the lives of her loved ones temporal, the whelks in the grotto are a constant; always there, unchanging.

In this moment, when Marie-Laure metaphorically becomes the Whelk, Doerr instantiates Marie-Laure’s imagination, and its ability to lend her strength and resolve. It also elucidates a fact of the human condition: in times of uncertainty, humans crave comfort and permanence, and clutch to what is known.

Nothing

God’s truth? How long do these intolerable moments last for God? A trillionth of a second? The very life of any creature is a quick-fading spark in fathomless darkness. That’s God’s truth.

Page 419

In this sardonic hypophora, Marie-Laure disabuses herself of any notion that a compassionate god may exist. Having spent her life enduring inordinate and undeserved suffering – first blindness, then the outbreak of war, then the loss of her father and Madame Manec, and now, being hunted by a Nazi gemologist – Marie-Laure is quick to voice her disillusionment with the idea that a deity could value her life anymore than a “quick-fading spark”.

Though a highly existential analogy, this passage is also a scathing criticism of the anthropocentric human ego. It suggests that humans have a propensity for inflating their own significance. Our realities are intimately shaped by our immediate interests and sufferings; we perceive the world exclusively through the metanarrative of our own self-importance, insofar that we often forget that when viewed from a much grander scale, our lives are mere instants.

Forty Minutes

War, Etienne thinks distantly, is a bazaar where lives are traded like any other commodity: chocolate or bullets or parachute silk. Has he traded all those numbers for Marie-Laure’s life?

Page 421

The metaphor by which Etienne characterises war as a “bazaar” highlights its trivialisation of human life. Indeed, in times of war, mothers, fathers, siblings, and children are reduced to “infantry”, “civilians”, “captives” and “rebels”, the lives of whom are products, readily traded to attain some measly higher ground, and the losses of whom are measured against each other in some crude mathematical game, a cost-benefit analysis, until a victor arises.

In this moment, Etienne fears that “those numbers”, the codes Marie-Laure has been delivering to him on behalf of the resistance, may have come at the cost of Marie-Laure’s life. Moreover, perhaps a more universal truth is reflected; all human actions come at a cost, though the price of any one decision is rarely immediately apparent.

Music #1

What mazes there are in this world. The branches of trees, the filigree of roots, the matrix of crystals, the streets her father re-created in his models. Mazes in the nodules on murex shells and in the textures of sycamore bark and inside the hollow bones of eagles. None more complicated than the human brain, Etienne would say, what may be the most complex object in existence; one wet kilogram within which spin universes.

Page 452 – 453

The syntax, divided by commas and then polysyndeton, is used to construct a collage of visual imagery. Each image depicts an intricate maze found in nature and evokes a sense of wonder, though they all coalesce on a single object: the human brain – which Etienne’s indirect speech describes as the most complex maze of all. Subsequently, the unromantic dysphemism of “one wet kilogram” is juxtaposed with the beautiful image of “spin[ning] universes”.

Ultimately, this exemplifies an extraordinary paradox: though in prosaic terms it appears a slimy pink blob, the human brain is actually an intricate matrix of 86 billion neurons, one that is capable of constructing what we experience as reality. Indeed, each and every thing you’ve ever seen, touched, believed – every person you’ve ever loved and every loss you’ve ever felt, their entirety and the whole universe as you see it – spins inside the “one wet kilogram” inside your skull.

The Simultaneity of Instants

[…] at the Napola school at Schulpforta, one hundred and nineteen twelve- and thirteen-year-olds wait in a queue behind a truck to be handed thirty-pound antitank land mines, boys who, in almost exactly one year, marooned amid the Russian advance, the entire school cut off like an island, will be given a box of the Reich’s last bitter chocolate and Wehrmacht helmets salvaged from dead soldiers, and then this final harvest of the nation’s youth will rush out with the chocolate melting in their guts and overlarge helmets bobbing on their shorn heads and sixty Panzerfaust rocket launchers in their hands in a last spasm of futility to defend a bridge that no longer requires defending, while T-34 tanks from the White Russian army come clicking and rumbling toward them to destroy them all, every last child […].

Page 467

In an instance of prolepsis, Doerr reveals the demise of the boys at Schulpforta, an end that will take place precisely one year from the present moment. Doerr’s extended syntax creates an uneasy sense of rising tension. Readers are given no pause nor the respite of a full stop, only an accumulation of blunders and horrors as slowly and painfully the futile last moments of the academy soldiers are revealed.

The “Reich’s last bitter chocolate” functions as a grim symbol. On one hand, it appears a rather inadequate consolation prize for the fact that the boys are being ordered to die. On the other hand, it is an ironic aspersion of the Nazi’s utter disorganisation and lack of provisions; their organisation of resources was so steeped in the prospect of victory that, by the war’s end, they have an excess of indulgent treats, and yet, no real sustenance.

Doerr describes the next moments as a “final harvest of the nation’s youth”, a rather euphemistic metaphor that foreshadows the systematic demise the boys shall soon face. Indeed, Doerr’s diction in using the word “harvest” connotes a sense of deliberation; the Nazi’s have chosen the fate of the boys, just as a farmer knowingly times the extraction of his crops.

Finally, in a sort of sadistic anticlimax, Doerr reveals that “every last child” is killed. The paradox, whereby these lives are sacrificed to “defend a bridge that no longer requires defending” elucidates the utter futility of this final stand. Though the boy’s did not need to die, though they died to protect a strategically null objective, their deaths had already been ordained by the egotism of the Nazi’s wartime regime.

*Jacques and our team of writers are currently hard at work completing this article. Come back in a few days for more ATLWCS Analysis!