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9. Big Claude
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in All the Light We Cannot See, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
World War II, the Nazis, and the French Resistance
Interconnectedness and Separation
Fate, Duty, and Free Will
Family
Science and “Ways of Seeing”
Summary
Analysis
Werner walks toward Etienne’s house, wondering how he can talk his way inside without making the broadcaster think he’s being arrested. He has been practicing French very carefully, planning to pose as a Frenchman.
Werner’s plan seems far-fetched—it’s highly unlikely that Werner, with his extremely Germanic looks and German accent, would be able to pass as a Frenchman. But this shows us how anxious and excited Werner has become.
Themes
Werner walks toward the house, and sees a teenaged girl wearing thick glasses. After studying her for a few moments, Werner realizes that she’s blind. Werner is incredibly nervous, though he can’t say why—he has nothing to fear. The teenager walks right by him, her cane barely missing his shoe.
This is Werner’s first meeting with Marie-Laure: the moment toward which the novel has been building for hundreds of pages. On the surface, it’s totally anticlimactic: they say nothing to each other, and Marie-Laure doesn’t even know that Werner is there. But this kind of delicate, almost nonexistent interaction fits with the overall theme of human connection in the book—all communication is tenuous and incomplete, and even though everything is interconnected, these connections are usually so small that they go unnoticed.
Themes
