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3. Hauptmann
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
In Saint-Malo, the Nazis order the French to voluntarily surrender all their weapons. Anyone who doesn’t do so will be shot. The townspeople seem to surrender their guns without a fight—there are only about 300 of them, in all. Meanwhile, Marie-Laure bonds with Etienne. They talk about Darwin and joke about the English. Etienne tells Marie-Laure about the places he’s studied, such as Borneo, Scotland, Santiago, and Scotland.
So far, we’ve been given almost no signs that Etienne is “crazy,” as Marie-Laure’s father had told Marie-Laure. On the contrary, he’s just old and eccentric, and his interests in science, travel, and exploration quickly endear him to Marie-Laure. Marie-Laure loses herself in a kind of fantasy—hearing Etienne’s stories and thinking about traveling—as her own world gets more oppressive.
Themes
