The Nightingale Summary

World War II is about to hit France and all the families are afraid from separation. Vianne and Antoine know that War was close and that in any time they might call Antoine to fight anytime. Their fear becomes a reality in no time as Germany suddenly declares war on France. Vianne has an idea of the war as her father was mobilized like her husband in World War I. She knew the war changed people; it changed her father so much that when their mother died, he threw them to a stranger to raise them.

Isabelle got expelled from her school, like the others before, for her bad behavior. She went to her father because that was her only choice although she knew that he did not want to see her face; she knew he might kick her out like he did before. She offered that she works in her father's bookstore instead of going to another school and getting kicked out again. He agreed. Isabelle wanted to fight in the coming war so much and wanted to make a change, but whenever she talked about it to someone, he or she made fun of her.

Suddenly, Germans were in Paris and Isabelle and her father had to hide. He decided that she will travel the next day to her sister Vianne where it is safer. She went with a family in a car then the fuel ended and they had to continue on feet. Isabelle got lost from them in between the thousands of people fleeing Paris with them. While trying to survive the stampede, she smells food and sees fire; she heads towards it and finds a man telling her to join him. She froze and knew she is in danger. He offers her food and tells her to trust him. She learns that his name is Gaetan and that he escaped prison when they opened the prison doors. She tells him that she wants to join the war and help France fight Germany, so they plan to go check on Vianne then head to war. However, she falls asleep in Vianne's garden with Gaetan and he goes to war alone and leaves her.

Isabelle lived with her sister for a while, and her sister was happy to have her. Suddenly a German man comes to their house and tells them that he will billet with them and it's the orders of the Germans. The patriotic Isabelle gets so mad but her sister was able to control her and make her aware of the dangers that come from opposing a German. As time passes, the german soldier, or Captain Beck, gets closer to Vianne and they start trusting each other slightly every day. He treated them very good, better than any other German,

Isabelle, meanwhile, had gone with the Free French group and became a woman who gives cards to French people that increase their hatred towards Germans and urges them to fight. As her activity increases, the Germans become suspicious and start searching for the one responsible for all of this. Isabelle gets a new identity with the name Juliette.

Captain Beck has trusted Vianne and asked her to write a list of all the Jewish people in her town. She was hesitant at first, but he told her that it would do no harm to her so she did as he said. Later, she learned that her neighbor and best friend, Rachel has been fired from her work with all the other Jewish women in town. Vianne got so scared that it was her fault.

Isabelle wanted to do more than just give letters to people; she wanted to make a change. So, the group gave her a mission of saving pilots who fell from their planes in France and successfully hid there. She had to go with them to Spain and make them arrive safely. They made a very careful route from France to Spain in which the Germans do not catch them. After thinking about it, Isabelle agreed to go although she knew that she is risking her life. She got the name "The nightingale"

Rachel was getting her food one day with Vianne when suddenly Germans started shooting people. Rahcel's daughter was killed. Hitler, when the Allies had got many successes, placed the Final Solution, which is the decimation of all Jews. He ordered the Germans to get all Jews to concentration camps or kill them. Captain Beck told this to Vianne, so she hid Rachel and her son in the basement. However, when the Germans were late, Rachel wanted to take a shower, and just as she got out, Germans came and she was taken to a concentration camp.

Isabelle once hid a soldier in Vianne's basement, and on this day also Captain Beck was searching for a soldier the Germans had reported that his plane fell but his body wasn't found. Luckily, Isabelle killed captain Beck in the right time and Vianne had helped her kill him by hitting him on the head.

Vianne knew she had to do something in the war to help. She got the Jewish children and placed them in an orphanage with a nun she knew who gave them fake identities as christians so they wouldn't be caught. She saved lots of children.

Isabelle was so successful and the Germans became very angry when they knew the number of soldiers that were supposed to be killed in a plane crash was increasing again. They were looking for the nightingale. Isabelle finds out that Gaetan was in the same group and he sent someone to get her to join them in the first place. When the Germans became more suspicious, it was very dangerous for Isabelle to continue, or even save soldiers in the same rate as she did, but she continued. Suddenly, one day, she was caught along with her friends in the house on the mountains. She was put in an interrogation room to know if she knew the nightingale. When she told them it was her, they didn't believe that a woman could do all of this and they laughed. Suddenly a man appeared and said that he was the nightingale. It was Isabelle's father. She learned that he was from the Free french group. She kept screaming that she was the real nightingale but they had already killed her father. She was placed in a concentration camp. However, she wasn't killed there because she was from the patriots, and she shouldn't be killed or else the French people will get mad and might make Germany lose. Yet Isabelle got so sick that even when the war ended she was so sick and died from this sickness. Antoine returned to his wife, and Vianne's life was safe again, but with a house destroyed and many close people to her heart dead, and Rachel's son, who had taken another identity as a Christian to be saved, in her hands to raise. Ari, Rachel's son, or Daniel, after his name was changed, was given back to his relatives in America after the war ended.