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Part 2: 30 May, 1946
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Literature and Connection
Family, Parenting, and Legitimacy
War, Hunger, and Humanity
Women, Marriage, and Work
Summary
Analysis
Juliet sends a note to Sidney with a letter she found slipped under her door. It's from Henry Toussant. He says that he's a champion whistler and would use his talent to torment the Germans. At night, he'd hide near the Germans' brothel and, when a whistling soldier left the building, he'd follow and whistle the same tune. Toussant says that the women in the brothels were much like the Todt workers—prisoners of war. The women were given extra food and often shared with the Todt workers. After D-Day, the Germans decided to send the women to France, but the boat hit rocks and all the women drowned. When Toussant's aunt insisted that the women deserved their fate, Toussant knocked the table over on her.
Toussant indicates that he saw the Germans' sex slaves as human and worthy of consideration, despite their line of work. Toussant's aunt's awful comment that the women deserved to die suggests that she focuses on whether or not a woman behaves in a way that's acceptable in polite company and isn't willing to look at any extenuating circumstances to come to a more compassionate reading of a woman's choices.
Themes
