Previous
Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Nightingale, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Morality and Impossible Choices
Antisemitism and Active Resistance
Gender Roles
Love and War
Summary
Analysis
The perspective shifts forward to April 1995. The unnamed narrator is sitting in a car that is driving along the Oregon Coast. Her seatbelt is making her uncomfortable. She thinks about how her generation was never concerned with objects like seatbelts because they didn’t expect to be shielded from the dangers of the world. She recalls all the dangers she experienced while driving when she was younger; she knew the risks and took them anyway.
This is the first time the novel returns to the 1995 plot, but the book still withholds the identity of the narrator. This passage gives more insight into her past, though: it seems that she’s been in a lot of dangerous situations in her life and doesn’t feel that she needs something as simple as a seatbelt to keep her safe.
Themes
The narrator is in the car because her son, Julien, is taking her to her new home in a retirement community. When they arrive at the retirement community, Julien shows the narrator to her new room. He also tells her that she is always welcome to come live with him if she does not like it here. The narrator refuses, thinking that the retirement community will suffice. She knows her death is coming, and she is aware of how much it will hurt Julien.
This passage gives more insight into the narrator’s personality. She seems to care a lot about other people and doesn’t want to burden her son or anyone else—this is why she insists that the retirement community will suffice as a nice and quiet place to die. She thinks about her death often but is not scared of it; if anything, she worries about how it will impact her loved ones.
Themes
Julien gives the narrator her mail, which includes a letter from Paris. The letter is an invitation to a gathering of passeurs—people who saved others during World War II. The narrator does not want to go to the gathering. If she does, she knows she will have to think about all of the terrible things she had to do in order to survive. She also mentions a man she killed during wartime, although she does not specify the man’s identity.
