Copenhagen By Margarethe Sparknotes

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Copenhagen is a very good book. The story line draws you in and the play format makes it even more of a quick read. Not far into it, you will find yourself tied up in trying to unravel the mystery of just what went down that night that Heisenberg and Bohr took a walk. The whole book is a mosaic of all the components of what makes a story great. Of course without Margarethe none of this would be possible. Margarethe is an integral part in the telling of the story of Heisenberg and Bohr because she serves as a link between the world of the scientists and the one where reality exists. She spices up the dialogue when its dragging and gives the audience catharsis when needed. She turns what would otherwise be an incoherent story about two confused …show more content…

Let it first be said that even though she is not a scientist, Margarethe is a very intelligent woman. When Bohr says this he doesn’t mean that they have to be able to dumb it down to her level, but that they have to be able to share the science without all of the fluff that makes it confusing. Margarethe takes it from there. She serves many times over in the story as a mediator that helps take all the intense science and turn it into something that everyone can comprehend. She does this by typing every one of her husbands scientific papers, and often retyping them multiple times. She does this for the audience of the play as well, throwing in little comments here and there that without the story wouldn't make much sense. For example, at one point in the story, Bohr is trying to explain how an atomic bomb would would. This of course is not a very simple explanation, and the author uses Margarethe to interject and clarify. So Bohr says something scientific and vague, and Margarethe fires back with a clarifying statement (Frayn 33). ” Having her be apart of the narrative is a catharsis for an audience who, while educated on most topics, would be wholly confused by and not connected to a story where Bohr and Heisenberg go back and forth about atomic structure theories and the rate of decay of Uranium

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