All the Light We Cannot See Literary Elements

Historical fiction

Germany and France during World War II, years 1939 - 1945, one part in 1974, and one part in 2014.

Third person omniscient, alternating between Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig. Other characters' narratives are also shown, such as those of Sergeant Major von Rumpel, Etienne, Daniel LeBlanc, Jutta Pfennig, and Claude Levitte.

The mood is a mix of the magic of discovery, the fear of those in power / fear of destruction, and the warmth of love pervading all.

The protagonists are Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig. The antagonists are von Rumpel, the war, and the Third Reich

Werner’s ethical dilemma in being part of the Nazi regime, as well as his more physical need to escape from the cellar; Marie-Laure’s safety in carrying out her duties in the resistance, while also unknowingly keeping the Sea of Flames in her possession, and her need to stay safe from von Rumpel.

When Saint-Malo is bombed and the protagonists are trapped: Werner, trapped in the basement, with no way to get out, listening to Marie-Laure read on the radio, while she is trapped in the attic hiding the Sea of Flames from von Rumpel.

In Chapter 46, von Rumpel notes that a slight swelling troubles his groin, foreshadowing the cancer that later appears in his body and is described in detail in Chapter 62, as the city of Saint Malo burns.

In Chapter 171, when Jutta visits Saint-Malo and sees a plaque for the French who died there, she thinks, "There are no plaques for the Germans who died here." This is an understatement because it points indirectly to the severe atrocities that the Germans committed.

“Volkheimer tucks the child’s foot gently back inside the closet. 'There’s no radio here,' he says, and shuts the door” (Ch 118). This is an understatement because Volkheimer and the rest of the unit already knows there is not a radio there; rather, there is a dead child, and this completely horrifies them.

Hades (ch 114): When Werner thinks of the entropy that the Nazis are supposedly trying to weed out of their system, he comes to realize that entropy still prevails, and all the locations that the Nazis have dominated seem as bad as Hades. Hades, the god of the underworld in Greek mythology, was the keeper of the dead; thus it seems to Werner that all of the places the Nazis have touched are full of the dead.

Jules Verne: referenced directly throughout the book, Jules Verne represents a sense of adventure, imagination through story-telling, and scientific discovery.

The Bible: Etienne thinks of the Old Testament's plague of the locusts in Part 1 when he sees the bombs being dropped on Saint-Malo; the bombs, thus, seem to him like a punishment from God. The Bible is again referenced by Jules Verne in the last line of the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, where a quote from Ecclesiastes presents a question about the limits of the human wisdom.

One of the most intoxicating images in the book is that of the Sea of Flames, which is cast as a magical diamond of a blue color, with red barely visible on the inside. This diamond feels hot to the touch to Marie-Laure, whereas it feels cold to Daniel LeBlanc; it seems to hold a power that no one can explain.

"It floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light. And yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light "(Ch 18). This paradox is one of the things "The Professor" says on his radio show. Science, in the context of the book, often takes the form of apparent paradoxes; this is part of what makes science magical for Werner and for Marie-Laure.

“You will become like a waterfall, a volley of bullets—you will all surge in the same direction at the same pace toward the same cause. You will forgo comforts; you will live by duty alone. You will eat country and breathe nation” (ch 45). This is the speech the boys receive upon arriving to Schulpforta. The construction of the sentences parallels what is being said: they have a cadence to them that makes them repetitive and almost catchy, thus serving their purpose of being a memorable ideology the boys can follow.

Synechdoche: “From your neighborhood,” the official says, “from your soil, comes the might of our nation. Steel, coal, coke. Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich—they do not exist without this place. You supply the foundation of the new order, the bullets in its guns, the armor on its tanks” (ch 16). the words here are used to drive home the idea that the coal of the nation embodies all of these forces. Thus the coal of the nation represents all of these things: the might, the bullets, and the armor.

Metonymy: “Marie-Laure looks up from her book and believes she can smell gasoline under the wind. As if a great river of machinery is steaming slowly, irrevocably, toward her” (ch 23). The machinery is more than just the literal tanks and weapons; it is the machinery of Nationalism and war.

In the climax of the novel, the fire in Saint Malo is personified. The flames that take over Saint Malo have life: “Flames scamper up walls” (Chapter 32).
In Chapter 59, "The drain moans; the cluttered house crowds in close" as Marie-Laure's father prepares to leave to go back to Paris without her, and the house conveys the pain and the fear she feels.
In Chapter 170, when Jutta is trying to contain the emotions that come back to her looking at Werner's things, "Memories cartwheel out of her head and tumble across the floor."