Summary and Analysis
PART FIVE: January 1941 “Orders” to “Relapse”
Summary
Hauptmann lies to the government by saying that Werner is 18 years old instead of 16. Werner is ordered to join a special technology division of the German military. Before he leaves for the front, he goes to visit Frederick in Berlin. Frederick’s mind has been severely damaged by his injuries: He can no longer take care of himself, he doesn’t remember Werner, and he has lost his interest in birds.
Madame Manec gets pneumonia. Marie-Laure receives a letter from her father telling her to look “inside Etienne’s house, inside the house” if she wants to understand his disappearance. Madame Manec recovers temporarily, then relapses and dies.
Von Rumpel learns that he has lymphoid tumors. He believes that the Sea of Flames diamond will heal him if he can only find it.
Analysis
Werner’s orders to join the war front are more proof that he doesn’t seem (at least in his own mind) to have control over his life. If he doesn’t obey the orders, he will be punished like Frederick—and his visit to Frederick makes this choice seem impossible. Not only is Frederick badly wounded by the people who attacked him at Schulpforta, but his mind has been so greatly altered that he is no longer himself; he doesn’t have any of the individual wants and desires that he once did. Ironically, although Frederick was the one who told Werner that Werner’s life’s path was predetermined, Frederick is the one who exhibits the dangers of acting with free will. One dangerous decision against the Reich has made it impossible for Frederick to ever make his own decisions again.
The mysterious letter from Marie-Laure’s father instructing her to look “inside Etienne’s house, inside the house” is a reminder of the theme of worlds within worlds—although Marie-Laure doesn’t understand what this phrase means until much later. Madame Manec’s words to Marie-Laure shortly before she dies—“Heaven is a lot like this”—raises this same theme, seeming to blur the boundaries between this life and the next one, asking where one world ends and another begins.