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Part 2, Section 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Code Name Verity, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
War, Women, and Gender Roles
The Horrors of War
Resistance and Courage
Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
Another Lysander recently came down; the field was so muddy that they couldn’t get it out and had to blow it up instead. So now, Maddie isn’t the only Special Duties pilot stuck here. Everyone in England desperately wants to get Maddie home, but it’s a ridiculously complicated process, and the heavy rain isn’t helping things. It looks like they’ll have to wait for the mud to dry so they can send a plane bigger than a Lysander.
The weather is normally a mundane facet of everyday life—but in wartime, something as simple as rain can pose a huge obstacle for pilots like Maddy. The fact that another pilot is also stuck here likely helps Maddie feel like she’s not alone.
Themes
The French family has given Maddie lots of warm quilts and sheepskins, but she’s still cold and wet. She eats one meal a day at the farmhouse so she can warm up. Her fingers have been so cold that she hasn’t written for a week. If only she were a writer, she’d be better able to describe how bored and afraid she’s been the last 10 days. She could die here. But days are still dull, as there’s nothing to do but worry.
For Maddie, time passes slowly in part because she’s simultaneously terrified and bored. The stakes are extremely high, but it’s still hard to not be bored when she’s stuck in a loft with nothing to do for most of the day. Writing this story occupies her and provides some relief, though Maddie doesn’t think too highly of her abilities as a writer.
Themes
Maddie remembers telling Julie her fears—now they just seem silly. These days, she’s afraid of fire, as she can smell the explosives below her in the barn. She’s afraid still of bombs dropping on people she loves and of Nazi concentration camps, which suddenly seem real. She’s afraid of court-martial still, but she’s not afraid of getting old. And now she’s afraid of Paul, whom she had to threaten with a gun when he tried to initiate sex. Maddie is also afraid of being English; apparently, it’s obvious that she’s English. She doesn’t have good clothes to help her hide, either.
It hasn’t taken Maddie long to rethink her fears—she’s only been in France about a week by this point, but the experience has been sobering. Looking back, she realizes that she and Julie were naïve when they talked about their fears—they had no idea then that they’d wind up stuck in Nazi-occupied France, afraid for their lives. Maddie’s life is complicated by Paul’s unwanted advances, too, but she can’t make too much of a fuss about him for fear of attracting unwanted attention.
Themes
Maddie’s eighth fear is letting people down. If the Ormaie Gestapo catch her, she’ll probably be tortured to give up the Moon Squadron’s location. The Gestapo can be her number-nine fear (unless the Ormaie Gestapo headquarters blow up soon, but this seems unlikely). Maddie has been here 10 days now, and she’s afraid to even write that Julie disappeared over a week ago. It’s terrible not knowing what happened, but here it’s normal. People disappear every day. So, Maddie is afraid she’ll be caught, that Julie is dead, and that Julie is being held prisoner at the Ormaie Gestapo headquarters.
Unlike Julie, Maddie hasn’t been trained in how to respond if she’s interrogated—and even though she’s shown courage in other aspects of her life, she doesn’t have high hopes that she’ll be able to bravely resist if she’s tortured. Instead, she sees herself as weak and an easy target. This is, perhaps, exacerbated by how afraid she is for Julie. Readers, of course, know that Julie is imprisoned in the Gestapo Headquarters, so Maddie’s fear is valid. But the Nazis operate in secret, which keeps people like Maddie in the dark and on-edge.
Themes
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