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Gail Poag Smith asked this question about All the Light We Cannot See:
What happened to the Sea of Flames stone at the end of the book? Was it still in the sea?
Jennifer I agree with all the replies about Werner going back and retrieving the wood house puzzle and leaving the stone. Marie Laure gave him the key after sh…moreI agree with all the replies about Werner going back and retrieving the wood house puzzle and leaving the stone. Marie Laure gave him the key after she asked how they would find each other, so the grotto would be the place he'd return to wait for her or be close to her....Then he returns the stone to the sea when he finds the little wooden house...lets it fall through the sea water to the ground of the grotto where it rests year after year, "mantled with algae, bedeckled with barnacles," signifying the curse was lifted...the curse symbolizing perhaps the darkness and loss of war, contrasting all the beauty and light that is the diamond, and all that is innocent and good in the world. The house...it's a puzzle box that entrapped the beautiful and cursed diamond with all its light and darkness...just as Marie Laure was trapped in the same house in all the inner and literal beauty, innocence, light and darkness she experienced as a blind girl living through a war surrounded by the wonders inside that house and the wonders her father introduced to her, the inhabitants of the house, and the world outside. And appropriately so, Werner takes the house with him, because he longs, "by some miracle, to keep this going," that he would "walk anywhere to make it happen, bear anything," to stay with Marie Laure and experience the wonders within the actual tall house. That the house is returned to her with the key to the grotto...a key like her father used to craft. The key symbolizes all the keys her father gave her that brought her happiness...all the wonder and beauty he unlocked for her so that she could see the light, despite being blind. Just as in in the other characters they could see the light despite living in the darkness of war. Just as Marie Laure was the light in the darkness of war to Werner.(less)
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All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr (Goodreads Author)
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