Amy asked this question about
All the Light We Cannot See:
When the owl visits Frederick at the end of the book, does anyone think that Frederick 'came back to life' and regained brain function? Or does this scene just offer some closure to his story line?
Clayton
I love all the threads everybody is pulling out in the responses; this whole novel is a heavy spool laden with anticipation to be unraveled.
Does Fred…moreI love all the threads everybody is pulling out in the responses; this whole novel is a heavy spool laden with anticipation to be unraveled.
Does Frederick’s mental health start to convalesce after seeing the owl? Perhaps there is a transient moment of clarity, but I agree that his mother’s mundane reaction seems to intimate these instances are not unprecedented. However, there is still a profusion of hope held in the symbolism of the owl.
Going back a few chapters, before Werner dies, we gain a brief insight into the deluge of his thoughts. He is inundated with memories of his childhood home: farmers ice-skating on the frozen ponds of Zollverein, building scrap sailboats, wagon rides with Jutta, and a return of his youthful curiosity. Werner stares at the moonlight outside the medical tent and ponders “why doesn’t the wind move the light?” The question is of the same quizzical order that he used to fill his notebook with during his time in the Children’s House. Together, his concatenated childhood memories and recovered curiosity, indicate that in his last moments alive, Werner recaptures and returns to his past state of childhood innocence before Schulpforta and the Reich tried to void him of himself. It is not a coincidence that the owl that visits Frederick is “as big as a child.” The affinity of the owl being childlike in size, works in tandem with the childhood memories Werner ruminates on before dying to highlight Werner’s connection with the owl symbolically.
Further buttressing this, Werner’s final recollection of the sailboat he and Jutta constructed, and the uncertainty of them building a second after the first had sunk reinforces the possibility of a second life. Much like the boat, Werner is built up from the “scraps” of Zollverein and sent downstream to Schulpforta. However, the water is not white like the frozen snow-topped ponds he watched ice-skaters on; it is fetid, roiling “black water” with a current that comes and “[sags]” the boat under. If we view the stream as the Reich, we can see how it not only took Werner away from Zollverein, like the pulling current, but also how it drowned him, too. After matriculating at Schulpforta and being filled with dictums to “breathe country and eat country,” it is his own country’s trigger mine that leads to Werner’s poignant “end.” Yet, the uncertainty of him saying “maybe we built another boat, I like to think we did,” evokes the same existential uncertainty and hope for an afterlife. Werner, in his last seconds on Earth, wants to believe in another life—in another boat. Coupled with his return to his childhood life in memory, and the desire for an afterlife shown through the second boat, Werner’s reincarnation is realized as the owl.
Additionally, rifting off Barb Halaburt’s comment, Marie-Laure’s ideation on souls filling the world like “radio waves,” and “flocks of birds,” also shares an affinity to the way we are shown Frederick has an “understanding of things others don’t,” and further evidences the connection between the owl and Werner. In Schulpforta, after being teased, upbraided, bullied, and beaten, Frederick always ends his day at the window listening to birds. It is vital to note: Frederick cannot see without his glasses. He also cannot attend school with them, under threat of being deemed inferior. Yet, Frederick’s love for ornithology will not be hewn from him, so he listens to birds and learns to understand them without seeing. Similarly, Marie-Laure expounds on her belief that souls might “harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns,” and yes, like owls, but you can only notice them “if you listen closely enough.” This is the light you cannot see but hear. It is the light felt only by those who can learn to experience the world without sight, it is a world filled with “shoals of sound” where “shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible.” Frederick is someone who saw the world by listening at Schulpforta. He is someone, who like Marie-Laure, knew how the “brain, which without a spark of light, builds for us a world full of light.”
Finally, the final scene of the owl is portended in the chapter Sum of Angles. One night, after Werner receives plaudits from Hauptmann, Frederick whispers to Werner that he “heard an eagle owl . . . perfectly.” Frederick pontificates on the attributes of the owl, while Werner ignores him as his mind wanders to winning awards in Berlin. This moment marks a point of divergence between their paths, each one growing more distant from the other. Henceforth, Werner experiences recurrent successes with his studies on the transmitter under Hauptmann. Conversely, Frederick’s torment seems immitigable, only increasing in severity. During the day, Werner dreams of winning “big scientific prizes,” and at night his thoughts are plagued with his willing complicity in Frederick’s suffering. Throughout the novel we see Werner struggle with his failure to help Frederick, eventually claiming that his “heart feels like it’s being crushed in a vice,” as he contemplates the horror Frederick had been subjected to. All of his regret stemming from the night he chose to ignore what Frederick could perceive, and he could not—the owl. It is in this impetus where Frederick’s ability to see without sight and understand what others cannot is first juxtaposed to Werner’s complacency. Soldering this to what others have mentioned in the comments: owls are regarded as symbols of guardianship and vigilance, and when the owl returns at the final pages of the book, through its connection with Werner, we see him given another chance to right the wrongs of his past. Werner may not have helped Frederick in Schulpforta, but he can watch over Frederick now.
Ultimately, Werner’s reclamation of his childhood memories and curiosity before dying, the desire for an afterlife shown through the second sailboat, Frederick’s ability to understand without sight, Marie-Laure’s ruminations on souls felt by those who can listen closely, and Werner’s second chance to right a wrong, all work in conjunction to show Werner’s manifestation as the owl posthumously. (less)
Does Fred…moreI love all the threads everybody is pulling out in the responses; this whole novel is a heavy spool laden with anticipation to be unraveled.
Does Frederick’s mental health start to convalesce after seeing the owl? Perhaps there is a transient moment of clarity, but I agree that his mother’s mundane reaction seems to intimate these instances are not unprecedented. However, there is still a profusion of hope held in the symbolism of the owl.
Going back a few chapters, before Werner dies, we gain a brief insight into the deluge of his thoughts. He is inundated with memories of his childhood home: farmers ice-skating on the frozen ponds of Zollverein, building scrap sailboats, wagon rides with Jutta, and a return of his youthful curiosity. Werner stares at the moonlight outside the medical tent and ponders “why doesn’t the wind move the light?” The question is of the same quizzical order that he used to fill his notebook with during his time in the Children’s House. Together, his concatenated childhood memories and recovered curiosity, indicate that in his last moments alive, Werner recaptures and returns to his past state of childhood innocence before Schulpforta and the Reich tried to void him of himself. It is not a coincidence that the owl that visits Frederick is “as big as a child.” The affinity of the owl being childlike in size, works in tandem with the childhood memories Werner ruminates on before dying to highlight Werner’s connection with the owl symbolically.
Further buttressing this, Werner’s final recollection of the sailboat he and Jutta constructed, and the uncertainty of them building a second after the first had sunk reinforces the possibility of a second life. Much like the boat, Werner is built up from the “scraps” of Zollverein and sent downstream to Schulpforta. However, the water is not white like the frozen snow-topped ponds he watched ice-skaters on; it is fetid, roiling “black water” with a current that comes and “[sags]” the boat under. If we view the stream as the Reich, we can see how it not only took Werner away from Zollverein, like the pulling current, but also how it drowned him, too. After matriculating at Schulpforta and being filled with dictums to “breathe country and eat country,” it is his own country’s trigger mine that leads to Werner’s poignant “end.” Yet, the uncertainty of him saying “maybe we built another boat, I like to think we did,” evokes the same existential uncertainty and hope for an afterlife. Werner, in his last seconds on Earth, wants to believe in another life—in another boat. Coupled with his return to his childhood life in memory, and the desire for an afterlife shown through the second boat, Werner’s reincarnation is realized as the owl.
Additionally, rifting off Barb Halaburt’s comment, Marie-Laure’s ideation on souls filling the world like “radio waves,” and “flocks of birds,” also shares an affinity to the way we are shown Frederick has an “understanding of things others don’t,” and further evidences the connection between the owl and Werner. In Schulpforta, after being teased, upbraided, bullied, and beaten, Frederick always ends his day at the window listening to birds. It is vital to note: Frederick cannot see without his glasses. He also cannot attend school with them, under threat of being deemed inferior. Yet, Frederick’s love for ornithology will not be hewn from him, so he listens to birds and learns to understand them without seeing. Similarly, Marie-Laure expounds on her belief that souls might “harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns,” and yes, like owls, but you can only notice them “if you listen closely enough.” This is the light you cannot see but hear. It is the light felt only by those who can learn to experience the world without sight, it is a world filled with “shoals of sound” where “shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible.” Frederick is someone who saw the world by listening at Schulpforta. He is someone, who like Marie-Laure, knew how the “brain, which without a spark of light, builds for us a world full of light.”
Finally, the final scene of the owl is portended in the chapter Sum of Angles. One night, after Werner receives plaudits from Hauptmann, Frederick whispers to Werner that he “heard an eagle owl . . . perfectly.” Frederick pontificates on the attributes of the owl, while Werner ignores him as his mind wanders to winning awards in Berlin. This moment marks a point of divergence between their paths, each one growing more distant from the other. Henceforth, Werner experiences recurrent successes with his studies on the transmitter under Hauptmann. Conversely, Frederick’s torment seems immitigable, only increasing in severity. During the day, Werner dreams of winning “big scientific prizes,” and at night his thoughts are plagued with his willing complicity in Frederick’s suffering. Throughout the novel we see Werner struggle with his failure to help Frederick, eventually claiming that his “heart feels like it’s being crushed in a vice,” as he contemplates the horror Frederick had been subjected to. All of his regret stemming from the night he chose to ignore what Frederick could perceive, and he could not—the owl. It is in this impetus where Frederick’s ability to see without sight and understand what others cannot is first juxtaposed to Werner’s complacency. Soldering this to what others have mentioned in the comments: owls are regarded as symbols of guardianship and vigilance, and when the owl returns at the final pages of the book, through its connection with Werner, we see him given another chance to right the wrongs of his past. Werner may not have helped Frederick in Schulpforta, but he can watch over Frederick now.
Ultimately, Werner’s reclamation of his childhood memories and curiosity before dying, the desire for an afterlife shown through the second sailboat, Frederick’s ability to understand without sight, Marie-Laure’s ruminations on souls felt by those who can listen closely, and Werner’s second chance to right a wrong, all work in conjunction to show Werner’s manifestation as the owl posthumously. (less)
by
Anthony Doerr (Goodreads Author)
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more