The A Theme

Today, after finally having completed All the Light I Cannot See, I will do my best to unpack the theme of the book or, put in ap terminology, the meaning of the book as a whole.

The ending provided us with the much-anticipated meeting of the main characters, with van Rumpel, Werner, and Marie-Laure all under the same roof at one time. As the Americans finish their assault on Saint-Malo, van Rumpel rallies himself into a last ditch effort to find the Sea of Flames in the LeBlanc house. He systematically tears the house apart from bottom to top, entirely unaware that Marie-Laure sits hidden the whole time in the secret room on the top floor. As he searches, Marie-Laure broadcasts her reading of the final few chapters of Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as well as her Great-Uncle’s music over the radio transmitter, at some points also calling out for help over the radio waves. Her broadcast is picked up by Werners radio, and inspires him and Volkheimer to blast their way out of their basement-prison, allowing Werner to come to Marie-Laure’s rescue by killing Von Rumpel and helping her out of the city. Werner dies after walking on a landmine shortly after this (yes, tragically Werner couldn't escape the fate he always feared of death-by-mine).

Following this action-packed scene of events, we are given a very bleak glimpse into the future of the remaining characters. Similar to how the main characters were all connected in one way or another, the remaining players too are driven together, primarily due to Werners death, and meet at different times. Volkheimer brings some of Werner's things to Jutta, who travels to Saint-Malo, and ultimately meets Marie-Laure in Paris, returning the wooden model of the LeBlanc house to her. The one remaining mystery at the close of the book is the coveted stone that once resided inside the wooden model, as Marie-Laure finds only the key to the passage inside.

So… What does this all mean?

Well, as I emphasised in the previous post, I found this book to be primarily plot-driven, however that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot going on. Using the broadest scope to analyse the book, I would say that the most prevailing message is entrapment. Almost every character is trapped by something. Marie-Laure’s fate was quickly sealed when she lost her sight at a young age, a condition that would mar much of her childhood. Her blindness often made her feel small and insignificant; unable to influence the world around her. Werner was trapped by his circumstances. Starting with the mine official telling the orphans they would work in the mines when they turned 16, and ending when Werner killed Van Rumpel, everything in Werner’s life was predetermined. No matter how little he bought into the Nazi propaganda fed to him in Schulpforta, Werner lived to do the bidding of others. His one friend Frederick pointed this out to him by saying “Your problem, Werner, is that you still believe in your own life.” Van Rumpel too is hopelessly trapped. Throughout his role in the book van Rumpel is fighting a losing battle with time, as the tumors in his body slowly kill him. Volkheimer was even trapped by his size, and it became his only defining feature. Many of the characters even become physically trapped. Volkheimer and Werner are both trapped in the basement under the collapsed hotel of bees, and Marie-Laure is trapped in her attic as van Rumpel ransacks her great-uncle’s house.

I think this book’s greater message is to break free of your bonds. Just as Werner and Volkheimer blasted away the debris of the hotel, escaping from his physical prison, he also broke down the walls of the cage that had held him fast all his life and started making decisions for himself. Similarly, Marie-Laure overcame her challenges, but with the help of others. Werner ultimately freed her from her imprisonment in her attic, just as her father and great uncle helped her overcome her blindness, to eventually lead a full and relatively satisfying life.

This brings me to another key aspect of the book. The character foil between Werner and Marie-Laure, culminating in a true “opposites attract” moment, becomes most obvious in the portion of the book. Overlooking the blatantly obvious (Marie-Laure is trapped in an attic while Werner in a basement, Marie-Laure is broadcasting to the resistance while Werner is hunting resistance broadcasters etc.) the two characters are influenced and mature in opposite ways. As I mentioned earlier, Werner’s struggle is to break away from the influence of others and act for himself, while Marie-Laure’s is to trust others, and let them help her. This fundamental difference of light-and-dark, sight-and-no-sight, is key to their juxtaposition. Werner frequently tells himself to “open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever,” while Marie-Laure, whose eyes have closed forever, still seems to do a lot of seeing. The inverting relationship between the two characters serves to reinforce the overlying theme, as the two opposite characters must both overcome their challenges in their own ways.  

There are numerous other themes and motifs present in the book. One of the most commonly recurring ones, Jules Verne’s Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, was the one that perplexed me the most. Starting almost at the very beginning, and carrying on until the end, there is a large emphasis placed on Marie-Laure’s reading of the book. Unfortunately, I haven't read the book, so it may well be that some deeper meaning therein lies, however I interpreted the book's presence mainly as a means of escape for Marie-Laure. First, from the dark sightless world she inherited so suddenly, and then later from the cold reality of the Second World War. I interpreted Etienne’s gifting of the second portion of the book to Marie-Laure as him truly taking on the role of her father, and any thought I had that Daniel would one day return was extinguished.

The ending of this book showed me just how elaborate and elegant this novel really was, and made it clear to me why it received the Pulitzer Prize. While it did leave me a little bit sad and hopeless, with it Doerr masterfully tied together the numerous strings present throughout the development of the plot. I was entirely satisfied by the ending.