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Part 2, Section 4
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
Maman is authorized to kill one chicken at the end of every month, just so she can make Sunday dinner for Etienne’s superiors. Maddie spent the officers’ last visit gripping her pistol tightly and watching through the slats in the barn. La Cadette, whose real name is Amélie, told Maddie about the visit. Maddie thinks it’s silly not to write the Thibaut family’s real names, even though to her, they’re Maman, Papa, and Mitraillette. Apparently, the family lets Amélie do most of the talking when the Nazis are visiting since she’s extremely charming.
The aside that Maddie is staying with the Thibaut family—who has a son in the Gestapo—as much as confirms that Etienne Thibaut is the Scharführer Thibaut who oversaw some of Julie’s writing. Noting that Amélie gets to do most of the talking suggests that the Thibauts are weaponizing Amélie’s youth, innocence, and femininity. Since she’s younger (and perhaps more naïve) than the others, it might not be so hard for her to make conversation with the enemy.
Themes
According to both Amélie and Mitraillette, the captain is terrifying, despite being soft-spoken and polite. He brings Amélie gifts every time he comes; this time it was a matchbook from the Château de Bordeaux. Everyone started with drinks, except for the “sullen German lass” who drives. Etienne had a fresh purple lump above his eye, and he wouldn’t tell Amélie where he got it. When Amélie asked the captain, he told her that Etienne protected him from “vicious prisoner[s].” At that, the secretary murmured to Mitraillette that a woman gave Etienne the bruise. Finding this out is hell for Maddie, as Julie has been gone for three weeks now. The headquarters in Ormaie doesn’t usually hold onto female prisoners.
The captain Amélie and Mitraillette refer to is, presumably, von Linden. And the “sullen German lass” is probably Engel—but it’s unclear whether Engel just doesn’t drink, or whether there’s a pattern of her superiors just not offering her drinks (recall that Engel didn’t get cognac during the Georgia Penn interview). For Maddie, learning that Etienne’s bruise came from a female prisoner suggests that the local Gestapo might have Julie. It also suggests that Julie is still alive and fighting, which is the best-case scenario at this point.
Themes
