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Jutta Pfennig
Frau Elena is the head of the orphanage where Jutta and Werner Pfennig grow up. She’s a gentle, kind woman, and treats all her children well, despite a severe lack of resources. When the Nazis rise to power in Germany, she’s bullied for being a Frenchwoman—but her decision to teach all her children to speak French leads (years later) to the thematic center of the novel: the encounter between Werner and Marie-Laure in Saint-Malo.
Frau Elena Quotes in All the Light We Cannot See
The All the Light We Cannot See quotes below are all either spoken by Frau Elena or refer to Frau Elena. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
3. Don’t Tell Lies
Quotes
“It’s not forever, Jutta. Two years, maybe. Half the boys who get admitted don’t manage to graduate. But maybe I’ll learn something; maybe they’ll teach me to be a proper engineer. Maybe I can learn to fly an airplane, like little Siegfried says. Don’t shake your head, we’ve always wanted to see the inside of an airplane, haven’t we? I’ll fly us west, you and me, Frau Elena too if she wants. Or we could take a train. We’ll ride through forests and villages de montagnes, all those places Frau Elena talked about when we were small. Maybe we could ride all the way to Paris.” The burgeoning light. The tender hissing of the grass. Jutta opens her eyes but doesn’t look at him. “Don’t tell lies. Lie to yourself, Werner, but don’t lie to me.”
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire All the Light LitChart as a printable PDF.
Frau Elena Quotes in All the Light We Cannot See
The All the Light We Cannot See quotes below are all either spoken by Frau Elena or refer to Frau Elena. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
3. Don’t Tell Lies
Quotes
“It’s not forever, Jutta. Two years, maybe. Half the boys who get admitted don’t manage to graduate. But maybe I’ll learn something; maybe they’ll teach me to be a proper engineer. Maybe I can learn to fly an airplane, like little Siegfried says. Don’t shake your head, we’ve always wanted to see the inside of an airplane, haven’t we? I’ll fly us west, you and me, Frau Elena too if she wants. Or we could take a train. We’ll ride through forests and villages de montagnes, all those places Frau Elena talked about when we were small. Maybe we could ride all the way to Paris.” The burgeoning light. The tender hissing of the grass. Jutta opens her eyes but doesn’t look at him. “Don’t tell lies. Lie to yourself, Werner, but don’t lie to me.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
