Character Analysis: All The Light We Cannot See
In Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, Werner Pfennig can be identified as a hero. Werner is an undersized boy with ears that stick out and hair that is “snowy, milky, [and] chalky (24)”. His image is the Nazi ideal; but his ideas are not. Werner questions everything and is not appeased by the simple and easy answers. Werner works to find these answers within his life, radios, and truth. Werner Pfennig can be identified as a hero due to his abnormal childhood as an orphan, his unwilling departure from home, and his reward of absolution. First, Werner has an atypical childhood. Werner lives at an orphanage called Children’s house in Zollverien, a mining town, with his sister Jutta. The Pfennig children are orphaned after their father
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Werner is reluctant to have a career in the mines and he wishes he could do something of purpose with his life. At the age of fourteen, he knows he has one more year and then they “will give him a helmet and lamp and stuff him into a cage with the other [miners] (68)”. Since Werner is a boy living in Zollverein he is destined to work in the mines; Werner feels smothered by this expectation. One day, Werner is called to fix the Siedler’s radio, after others have attempted to with no success. Werner is able to fix the radio and Frau Siedler claims, “he fixed it just by thinking (83)”. He is rewarded for his talent with cream and Herr Siedler recommends he attends the Heissmeyer school, a place for “boys like [Werner] (84)”. Werner finds hope in this experience, for the first time, he feels that there is a possibility that he will not have to work and eventually die in the mines. Werner eventually gets invited to the entrance exams for the National Political Institutes of Education in Essen and passes. After his acceptance to one of the academies in Schupelforta, a place that is five hours away by train, he is excited but cannot fathom why Jutta is not happy for him. Werner is excited to attend school at Schupelforta not to support the Nazi Germany cause but because he wants to learn and become a proper engineer. While Jutta understands this, she also knows that he will be brainwashed by the cause. Without Jutta’s
Werner is reluctant to have a career in the mines and he wishes he could do something of purpose with his life. At the age of fourteen, he knows he has one more year and then they “will give him a helmet and lamp and stuff him into a cage with the other [miners] (68)”. Since Werner is a boy living in Zollverein he is destined to work in the mines; Werner feels smothered by this expectation. One day, Werner is called to fix the Siedler’s radio, after others have attempted to with no success. Werner is able to fix the radio and Frau Siedler claims, “he fixed it just by thinking (83)”. He is rewarded for his talent with cream and Herr Siedler recommends he attends the Heissmeyer school, a place for “boys like [Werner] (84)”. Werner finds hope in this experience, for the first time, he feels that there is a possibility that he will not have to work and eventually die in the mines. Werner eventually gets invited to the entrance exams for the National Political Institutes of Education in Essen and passes. After his acceptance to one of the academies in Schupelforta, a place that is five hours away by train, he is excited but cannot fathom why Jutta is not happy for him. Werner is excited to attend school at Schupelforta not to support the Nazi Germany cause but because he wants to learn and become a proper engineer. While Jutta understands this, she also knows that he will be brainwashed by the cause. Without Jutta’s