Summary and Analysis PART FIVE: January 1941 “Old Ladies’ Resistance Club” to “Alive Before You Die”

Analysis While Werner is wrestling with his feelings of helplessness at Schulpforta, he remembers one of the lines from the French professor’s radio shows from his youth: “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” This call to awareness and action is an important […]

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Summary and Analysis PART FIVE: January 1941 “Lapidary” to “You Have Other Friends”

Analysis The conversation between Madame Manec and the other French women about the German occupation reveals the power that ordinary citizens have to support or undermine an oppressive regime. As Madame Manec points out to the others, “We’re the ones who make their world run.” By simply continuing to do […]

Read more Summary and Analysis PART FIVE: January 1941 “Lapidary” to “You Have Other Friends”

Summary and Analysis PART FIVE: January 1941 “January Recess” to “Plage du Mole”

Analysis A brief glimpse into the Nazis’ mistreatment of Jews occurs when Werner and Frederick meet Frederick’s neighbor Frau Schwartzenberger, a woman with a yellow Star of David stitched onto her coat to indicate her Semitic heritage. Werner later hears Frederick’s mother telling her friends about “the Schwartzenberger crone” who […]

Read more Summary and Analysis PART FIVE: January 1941 “January Recess” to “Plage du Mole”

Summary and Analysis PART THREE: June 1940 “The Wardrobe” to “The Arrest of the Locksmith”

Summary Etienne emerges from his room and learns about the confiscation of the radios. Marie-Laure explains her choice regarding the radio still in the attic. Initially, he wants to surrender it to the Germans, but Marie-Laure convinces him it is too late. Paranoid that Nazis might search the house and […]

Read more Summary and Analysis PART THREE: June 1940 “The Wardrobe” to “The Arrest of the Locksmith”

Summary and Analysis PART THREE: June 1940 “Time of the Ostriches” to “Museum”

Summary Marie-Laure’s father works urgently on a model of Saint-Malo for Marie-Laure as conditions intensify in the city. French citizens are ordered to surrender their radios; because Etienne stays shut up in his room, Madame Manec and Marie-Laure’s father gather the house’s many radios and turn them over to the […]

Read more Summary and Analysis PART THREE: June 1940 “Time of the Ostriches” to “Museum”