Rebellion In 'All The Light We Cannot See'

In the second part of the novel All the Light We Cannot See, a prominent theme is rebellion because of what Madame Manec and some of her close friends that live in Saint-Malo have planned to do against the German soldiers and have found other ways to communicate what has been happening in France with perhaps other countries. Madame Manec, before her death, asked Marie-Laure and Etienne “Do you know what happens, Etienne”… “when you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water?”… “It jumps out. But do you know what happens when you put the frog in a pot of cool water and then slowly bring it to a boil? You know what happens then?... “The frog cooks.” (pg. 285) I believe that this obviously plays a role in her rebellion together with other women against the soldiers, but the way I saw it is that it can symbolize a metaphor for what they are doing to the German soldiers because the

Doerr makes this evident in the book because there are at least 5 or more parts that are about Von Rumpel and him wanting to get his hands on that diamond because as stated in the book “So long as he keeps it, the keeper of the stone will live forever.” (pg. 357) This proves that Von Rumpel desires to have the stone because he wants to get better and escape from the hands of his sickness. But Von Rumpel is not the only one that is going through some sort of misery, Marie-Laure, who has the Sea of Flames, is also suffering because one, her dad is a prisoner, two, she has no idea where her uncle Etienne could be, and three, Madame Manec passed away. Doerr once again, during this part of the novel, repeats “Poor child. Poor Monsieur LeBlanc. Like they’re cursed.” (pg. 320) This serves as evidence that because Marie-Laure has the stone her life has been surrounded by unfortunate events as mentioned