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What Does Werner Pfennig All The Light We Cannot See Represent

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The Character Development of Werner Pfennig All the Light We Cannot See is a 2014 novel written by Anthony Doerr. It follows the stories of Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind Parisian girl, and Werner Pfennig, a German orphan recruited into the Hitler Youth, as World War 2 begins to escalate. As the story moves along, the reader learns more about not only the characters, but the horrors and reality many people had to live through during World War 2. Doerr uses the war and living through the Nazi regime to develop Werner’s character. At the beginning of the novel, Werner is introduced as an orphan who has an interest in radios, however through the war he goes through many moral dilemmas that causes him to become a completely different person by the end of the novel. When Werner is introduced he …show more content…

While Werner thinks what he’s doing is heroic and will better society, Jutta knows better and resents him for the decisions he’s made. When Werner first meets the other protagonist of the novel, Marie-Laure, he is 16. Werner’s encounter with Marie-Laure introduces him to a new world view. With this being his first time out of Germany, Werner is able to meet people and see things that he would never have in Nazi Germany. Marie-Laure acts as foil to Werner. Although she is blind, she has the ability to see through the Nazi propaganda and is aiding in freeing the people of Saint Malo from the Nazi occupation. In a 2015 interview, author Anthony Doerr describes Werner to be “more blind than Marie-Laure because he can’t or chooses not to see [what is happening in his world].” It isn’t until Werner encounters Marie-Laure that he begins to question the legitimacy of the Nazi party and what he’s fighting for. The more time they spend together, the more Werner sees the destruction and pain caused by the

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