I read All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. My book first ends in late 1944 when France has been reoccupied by the Allies. Both main characters are in Saint-Malo in late 1944 where it is under siege. First Marie is encounter by a German sergeant major who is looking for The Sea of Flames the diamond her father once possessed and the diamond she now possesses. The German boy Werner Pfennig saves Marie's life by killing the sergeant major. "Werner lunges for Volkheimer's rifle. All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?"(Doerr) pg 465. He and Marie survive the rest of the siege. He then helps her escape the city even when he is not safe himself. After he gets her to safety and runs the other way he is captured by the Allies and sent to a camp where sick German soldiers are staying. He develops a high fever sickness and is miserable so he tries to escape and in the process steps on a landmine and dies. "But Werner has crossed the edge of the field, where he steps on a trigger landmine set there by his own army three months before, and disappears in a fountain of the Earth."(Doerr) pg 483. Eventually his sister Jutta gains Werner's stuff because it was sent to Volkheimer through mail and he traveled to give it to Jutta. Jutta is very torn about this but ultimately decides to travel to learn about Werner's time during World War Two. By searching for Werner's past she meets Marie who is a old professor now. There she returns some very important items to Marie. This makes for an ironic but happy ending overall! But why does this matter? I feel like my book matters because it delves deep into a civilian point of view in the war. The extremely interesting part is the point of view of a German soldier and civilian. The most valuable takeaway from my book might just lie in the title-"All the Light We Cannot See"-I think this symbolizes that hope is sometimes where you don't expect it. Adding on to this is I think hope powers many emotion such as love and happiness as well as many messages. Many themes occurred during the book but there are two that I wanted to point out. One is 'Fight till the end'/'Never give up' and the other is 'Treat others the way you wanted to be treated'. The second theme has a very different meaning in this book than how people usually interpret it, I wanted to use it to describe the ironic but amazing events of the two main characters saving each others lives multiple times. The first theme is meant to show the incredible will of the two main characters during the war, they faced adversity on all sides but powered through with that hope that I mentioned was so important to this book. This is still valuable today because we need hope on a day to day basis, whether its a good day or a bad day sometimes we have to have hope that we'll get a good grade on a test or a friend won't get mad at you... . Hope doesn't have to come at the same scale that is provided in my book to provide important learning messages to make getting through things a little bit easier. This was a great read and I am so glad I chose to use this book for this project!
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In my book all the Light We Cannot See, the two main characters Marie-Laure Leblanc and Werner Pfennig have seen lots of character development. World War Two has begun and chaos has broken loose by this time in the book Marie and father were forced to flee Paris because of the impending German occupation. They fled to a coastal "citadel" named Saint-Malo where Marie's great uncle lives. Once in Saint-Malo they live in a 6 story home that her great uncle owns. Oppositely in Germany Werner has proven himself very capable in mathematics and engineering. This happened because he spent lots of time fixing, and improving his own radio. He has also read a lot to understand how this machinery works. He became famous for fixing radios and was recruited as a cadet for the Nazi's. His expert building talents are about to be revealed and I am on the edge of my seat wondering where they will be used. The setting is World War Two and the outcome and the things that happened during the war shaped lots of our world today. The first major thing that I wanted to mention was that the victors became world superpowers, which eventually led to the Cold War (USA vs. Soviet Union). Inside of the Cold War are others wars about democracy vs. communism and is a big part of our country's history. The next thing I wanted mention is that we learned a lot about racial and religious persecution and even got a new word "genocide". The extremely brutal, extremely sad, and mournful events of the holocaust led to movements for all kinds people, even very recently. The last major change I wanted to talk about was in medicine. After World War Two medicine changed a lot, new medicines were needed during the war and they came. Penicillin the first antibiotic was mass produced for World War Two and a new system to produce dried blood plasma allowed blood transfusions on the battlefield which saved many soldiers lives. This is just three ways that World War Two shaped the world today .
In my book, All The Light We Cannot See, the setting is that of one in heavy tension leading to a wartime. It is the years leading up to World War Two and there are two main characters in my book. One resides in Paris, France and the other lives in Zollverein, Germany. In France there is not much talk of war while in Germany Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party are growing in public support. My book is very realistic in the ways it describes the days leading up to World War Two. In Paris, France the girl and her father are unsuspecting to what will happen in the next couple of years, whereas in Zollverein, Germany the boy can see the struggle of the ordinary German-fighting unemployment with hard labor and a menial job. The boy in Germany has found a radio and hears the ongoing support of the Nazi Party. He also see support for the Nazi's growing around him, in the text it says "When they come back, they are members of the Hitler Youth.(Doerr) pg 42 It also says "Good Evening or heil Hitler if you prefer!"(Doerr) pg 42. Both main characters are seemingly too young to understand the tension building in Europe but I predict that when the war starts the will have different points of view at first but united at the end.
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