All The Light We Cannot See Analysis

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In many cases, freewill is either present or non existent in children. During world war two, many children in Germany were deprived of their free will, and when the war was over, many German citizens were left scrambling to find freewill again. In All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, one of the main characters, Werner, struggles with finding his voice and his freewill within a Hitler youth training school. During his experience there, he stands by and watches as one of his only friends is bullied and in the end left as a shell of his existence. Werner struggles with what he should of done and if it really is beneficial to blend in with the rest of the boys at the school; while Werner may recognize his wrongdoings and the wrongdoings of others, he feels …show more content…

When first introduced to Werner, the reader is able to see that he does have some sense of freewill. When he and his sister find the radio, despite them basically being illegal, they smuggle it back to their home and fix it up. While radios at this time were used for nazi propaganda, Jutta and Werner both enjoy listening to the radio broadcasts from outside of Germany. Eventually we see Werner fall into line with many of the Hitler youth and he refuses to listen to anything outside of German broadcasting, due to his fear of being found out. Werner eventually destroys the radio. So while Werner shows evidence of at one point having freewill, the outside influence of the nazis eventually overpower him, leaving him as yet another Hitler youth that follows orders blindly. Another instance in which we see Werner do nothing, is as mentioned before, when Frederick is being bullied. Frederick for a while appeared to have no sense of free will, but after he and Werner return, the reader can clearly see he has found his courage again, especially when

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