All The Light We Cannot See Theme

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All the Light We Cannot See is a book written by Anthony Doerr published in 2014. It tells a story of a blind French girl named Marie-Laure and a gifted German boy named Werner Pfennig. The author takes the reader into the terrible time of the Second World War that is considered to be a dark and a massive atrocity in human history, which left eighty-five million people dead. Anthony Doerr explores this terrifying environment and tells the readers a story of two people who, against all odds, have seen kindness in the worst of times. The characters found the invisible light in a world bound to be covered in darkness. The themes of light and happiness are analysed numerous times throughout the novel, thus, it is critical to explore their definitions. …show more content…

In the book, Madame Manec is an old housekeeper and caretaker for Marie-Laure and her uncle Etienne. Madame Manec bravely followed her own beliefs and unfrightened fought the German oppression. Madame Manec coordinated with people from the town and established an efficient method to transfer encrypted messages between the residents of Saint-Malo, by hiding notes inside loafs of bread. Every day she risked her life to bring calculated misfortunes to the German soldiers controlling their city. When confronted by Mr. Etienne, Marie’s uncle, regarding her actions she simply replied, “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?” (Doerr 189). This quote demonstrates Madame Manec’s understanding of the world that a person’s life is bound to cease sooner or later. Thus, she found happiness in fighting discreetly against the Germans and for the first time she felt alive. Furthermore, Madame Manec is an influential person who shares her optimistic views on the future with the residents of her town. She is motivated by the light at the end of the tunnel, a light that is always present deep inside ourselves, which made her feel invigorated and youthful again. A respectable counter argument would be that Madame Manec is a …show more content…

With this in mind, the book conveys a very powerful message that light and hidden behind it, happiness, is always present. However, a character must apprehend great risks to harvest that light. The second protagonist and arguably the most influential one in the book is named Marie-Laure LeBlanc. Marie is a sixteen-year-old French girl who lost her vision at the age of six and was solely raised by her father. Shortly after the war broke out, they moved from the city of Paris to a small and walled port city by the name of Saint-Malo, where her uncle Etienne resided. Her father worked as a locksmith at National Museum of Natural History and was entrusted with a precious stone named the sea of flames. Provided that her father had the diamond, he hid it with care so that Marie would be the first one to find it. While he went back to Paris to find out the situation at the museum, unfortunately, Marie’s father was captured and was sent to a Nazi’s labour camp north of the country, hence leaving Marie-Laure within the care of Madame Manec and her uncle Etienne. The girl has experienced incredible challenges in her life and her father was always the driving force to help her overcome those hardships, so now she had to follow her own judgments to move forward in

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