Chandré’s answer to “**HUGE SPOILER ALERT** Was anyone else as disappointed as I was with Werner's death? I was so mad…” > Likes and Comments
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I wondered if Werner was delirious from his illness when he walked away from the camp. I don't think he realized the perimeter was mined. It was a shocking and sad thing, but as others have pointed out, this is the brutality of war.
I did read it as a suicide. The chapter leading up to it was full of images of dead leaves and scudding clouds, and a balloon being blown on the wind - I think Werner felt like a similarly hollow, inwardly dead figure, and his walking into the mined field was at least an unconscious suicidal act. It was also poetically apt that he was killed by German mines.
I didn't initially think of it like that but now I agree that it does seem like suicide.
I didn't think it was suicide because he seemed delirious and had accidentally walked out into mines before in the book (at the beach when he saw the ocean for the first time). But he had contemplated it when trapped in the cellar, so I can see how it could be interpreted that way.
I agree. I always hope for happy endings, and I was disappointed that the book ended like this.
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Landrea
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May 19, 2015 03:57PM
I wondered if Werner was delirious from his illness when he walked away from the camp. I don't think he realized the perimeter was mined. It was a shocking and sad thing, but as others have pointed out, this is the brutality of war.
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I did read it as a suicide. The chapter leading up to it was full of images of dead leaves and scudding clouds, and a balloon being blown on the wind - I think Werner felt like a similarly hollow, inwardly dead figure, and his walking into the mined field was at least an unconscious suicidal act. It was also poetically apt that he was killed by German mines.
I didn't initially think of it like that but now I agree that it does seem like suicide.
I didn't think it was suicide because he seemed delirious and had accidentally walked out into mines before in the book (at the beach when he saw the ocean for the first time). But he had contemplated it when trapped in the cellar, so I can see how it could be interpreted that way.
I agree. I always hope for happy endings, and I was disappointed that the book ended like this.
