In his use of anxious tone, Anthony Doerr reveals the uncertainty people face during a time of war. The book All the Light We Cannot See follows the story of Marie-Laure and Werner Pfennig, two teenagers trying to survive during ruinous World War II. Werner, an orphan teenager was a member of the Hitler Youth, and Marie-Laure, a blind Austrian teenager whose father was captured during the war, spent much of their time trying to justify the terrible things going on around them. The teenagers were never relaxed and always on their toes, fearing what could happen next. For example, when Marie-Laure was hiding in the attic hiding from the German Officer who was searching her Uncle's home, Doerr writes, "Time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever” (Doerr 376). Marie-Laure was stuck in an impasse, she had lost her concept of time and was frantic about what was going on. She was unsure of how long she had been hiding or the time of day and was unsure if she could ever escape without being caught, Doerr emphasizes that anxiousness through this quote by explaining that by losing her idea of time, she became uneasy. Another common theme of anxiety occurs with Etienne, Marie-Laure's Uncle, who became mentally ill after he fought in World War I. He purports to see monsters floating through walls and things so terrible he has to seclude himself from society for days at a time. Much like people suffering from schizophrenia, Etienne suffers from delusions that can cause psychotic episodes. When Etienne had psychotic episodes, he locked himself in his room for days at a time. When Marie-Laure begins to understand her Uncle's troubles, Doerr writes, "And yet she can tell he is visited by fears so immense, so multiple, that she can almost feel the terror pulsing inside him. As though some beast breathes all the time at the windowpanes of his mind” (Doerr 157). Doerr uses Etienne's fears to highlight the concept of fear and anxiety surrounding war. Just like Etienne's fears, the story surrounds an uncomfortable anxiety behind the war. War is a time of uncertainty and worry.
In the historical fiction book, All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr follows a strict pattern of historical accuracy to increase background in his story. Towards the end of the book, as Doerr explores the life of his characters as they’ve grown up, he uses true historical fact to support his storyline. When writing about the way Jutta, the younger sister of a former German soldier, learned about the death of her brother he managed to stick to a common theme in Nazi Germany’s distribution of death notices. Doerr writes, “In the fall, at Zollverein, she received two letters announcing his death. Each mentioned a different place of burial. La Fresnais, Cherbourg - she had to look them up. Towns in France.” (Doerr 488) The Nazis would often make the mistake of sending families two notices of the death of their loved ones and left them restive. Families who tried to find answers consequently realized that others had received the exact same notice; meaning they were being lied to about the tragic loss of their brothers, mothers, sisters, and fathers. The story then jumps to 1974, 30 years after Jutta had lost her brother. Jutta’s brother Werner had served under Staff Sergeant Frank Volkheimer. Volkheimer saw Werner as a younger brother thus resulting in him receiving what was found of Werner’s things. Volkheimer read, “The letter explains that the organization is trying to deliver items to next of kin of dead soldiers whose names have been lost. It says they believe he, Staff Sergeant Frank Volkheimer, served as ranking officer of a unit that included the owner of the this bag, a bag that was collected by a United States Army prisoner-of-war processing camp in Bernay, France, in the year 1944.” (Doerr 499) 30 years after Werner had died, his belongings had finally reached their way back to those who knew him. Postwar restitution had lasted until the early 1970s, as it was a painstakingly slow practice. Restitution organizations faced major problems, both because when items were usurped names were often not found along with them and because a lot of items belonged to people who had died without record. The historical accuracy Doerr uses enhances the realisticness of his story. Despite the fact that All the Light We Cannot See is a piece of fiction, it seems entirely possible that the story could have actually occurred.
The artistry in the description of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is exceptionally eloquent. Through imagery and syntax, Doerr is able to give the readers a remarkable story of World War 2 from the perspective of Marie-Laure, a young Austrian girl who is blind, and Werner, an orphan who was recruited as a member of the Hitler Youth due to his exceptional skills in science and math. With syntax, Doerr manipulates the length of his writings to mirror what it’s like to live in a time period of war and terror. Typically, Doerr leans towards shortening sections within a chapter whilst making the chapter itself long. For instance, while chapter 1 is 91 pages long, there are 23 separate sections within that chapter not exceeding 5 pages each. Through this technique, Doerr is able to represent how every moment is important yet short-lived in the war, which appears more like an impasse, going on around the characters. Additionally, Doerr uses syntax by elongating certain sentences to extend their time in a reader’s mind, increasing their meaning. For example, when Marie-Laure is calculating her noise as a German searches her Uncle’s home, Anthony Doerr plays on the delicacy of her senses and takes advantage of a semi-colons to enhance the importance of the ones she has by bloviating, “Marie-Laure can sit in an attic high above the street and hear lilies rustling in marshes two miles away. She hears Americans scurry across farm fields, directing their huge cannons at the smoke of Saint-Malo; she hears families sniffling around hurricane lamps in cellars, crows hopping from pile to pile, flies landing on corpses in ditches; she hears the tamarinds shiver and the jays shriek and the dune grass burn; she feels the great granite fist, sunk deep into the earth’s crust, on which Saint-Malo sits, and the ocean teething at it from all four sides, and the outer islands holding steady against the swirling tides; she hears cows drink from stone troughs and dolphins rise through the green water of the Channel; she hears the bones of dead whales stir five leagues below, their marrow offering a century of food for cities of creatures who will live their whole lives and never once see a photon sent from the sun. She hears her snails in the grotto drag their bodies over the rocks” (Doerr 391). The semi-colons allow readers to understand that despite the fact that Marie-Laure lacks one sense, she exceeds endlessly with her other senses.
It’s not hard to find a book with impressive imagery that paints a picture you can see before you, but in All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr does that and more. He creates a scene you can feel, smell, hear, and see through the perspective of Marie-Laure. Due to the fact that Marie-Laure is blind, she endures the world in an entirely different but just as meaningful way, and Doerr captures her feelings through descriptive details of her senses. For example, he describes her heightened sense of smell by writing, “She holds it to her nose. It smells of fresh ink. Gasoline, maybe. The paper is crisp; it has not been outside long” (Doerr 6). By using the senses smell and touch but not sight, Doerr creates a realistic portrayal of how the letter is experienced through Marie-Laure. He also creates imagery through just feel. For example, when Marie-Laure and her father move to Saint-Malo to live with her Uncle, her father creates an accurate model of the town with the correct amount of storm drains on it so she can practice counting how many it would take her to get to different places. Eventually Marie-Laure could use the storm drains to navigate where she was going, “Twenty-two paces down the rue Vauborel to the rue d’Estrés. Then right for sixteen storm drains. Left on the rue Robert Surcouf. Nine more storm drains to the bakery” (Doerr 322). Marie-Laure’s technique of navigating through touch shows a completely different viewpoint to the reader that manages to be descriptive without any images. Although, the most remarkable part about this quote is the accuracy it has to the city. Not only do all of the streets (rues) exist, but there is also a bakery on rue Robert Surcouf. The tale of historical fiction by Doerr is so accurate to fact that if one didn’t know any better, it’d be easy to believe the story is true. With detailed accounts of Marie-Laure’s senses, Doerr is able to create a more powerful story by allowing readers to connect with her more. The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart, is the story of teenager Ruby’s experience with therapy after she had 5 panic attacks in one week. E. Lockhart tells the story from Ruby’s perspective, using flashbacks and imagery to explain what happened to Ruby in vivid detail. At one part of the book, E. Lockhart describes Ruby's experience finding a date to her school dance. The year before, she attended a dance with her mother's friend's son, Angleo. Ruby had gone to dinner at Angelo's house and described what she saw very vividly by writing, "It was one of the first warm days of spring, and Angelo was out on Juana's front lawn throwing sticks for seven dogs at once. He had this system of three stick in rotation, so he was throwing constantly. The dogs were going berzerk. He was taller than the last time I saw him, and he'd let his hair grow out, so you could see the curls. He was wearing an oversize football jersey and baggy jeans" (Lockhart 150). Using descriptive details highlights what Ruby notices when she meets someone, showing her character. Ruby had a tendency to analyze what someone was doing while being a "typical" teenage girl and admiring how cute a boy was. Later on, Ruby’s therapist, Doctor Z, had her write a list of boys she’s ever dated or thought of dating because a majority of Ruby’s problems rooted from issues with boys. Ruby created the list the night after her appointment with Doctor Z, but it was very messy so she threw it out and rewrote the list in her Geometry class. The next day when Ruby went into school, her list was placed in everyone’s locker. No one knew what the list actually meant but most assumed it was the list of guys she had been romantically or sexually involved with, as she had recently kissed her best-friend’s boyfriend. Once the list was posted, Ruby became the most hated person in school and discovered writing about her on the walls of the school bathroom. The writing is described by Ruby as, “By Friday, the girls’ bathroom in the main building had a ton of anti-Roo graffiti. ‘Who does Ruby Oliver think she is?’ ‘God’s gift to the male sex’ ‘Ruby Oliver is a ______ (fill in the blank),’ ‘Lousy friend.’ ‘Fantasist.’ ‘Slut.’ ‘Trollop.’ ‘Hussy.’ ‘Tart.’ ‘I hope she’s using birth control.’ ‘I heard she might have an STD.’ I tried to wash it all off with a wet paper towel, but you could still read it with no trouble, especially the parts in black Magic Marker” (Lockhart 182). The extensive list of words and phrases used to bedevil Ruby provide a glimpse as to why Ruby had so many panic attacks. Being called one of these things is enough to send someone into a dangerous state but all of these words used at once were like knives hitting her back again and again. I thought this part was most important because not only does it highlight Ruby’s issues but it also highlights society’s. Nothing written in this book is inaccurate to the pitiful words teenagers use to attack each other today, not necessarily on bathroom stalls, but with use of social media. Tweets and facebook statuses are use to belittle others over rumors. Most people try to eschew the tweets but they’re unavoidable, as all the tweets appear on your timeline and screenshots are sent to you. No one says anything, not wanting to start a fight over social media, and the person it’s about is left question what they’ve done again and again, even if it’s nothing. Ruby’s panic attacks because of bullying are nothing uncommon in a teenage girls’ life, as I saw two of my friends have on just this past week. The Boyfriend List is a disappointingly accurate representation of the life of a teenage girl in today’s society.
Throughout Columbine, Dave Cullen dedicates several passages to his history as a reporter and the extensive research he analyzed when developing this book. One of the most important points Dave Cullen brings about to highlight his credibility is the 10 years he spent carefully writing this book. Also, Cullen continuously acknowledges where he derived information on psychology and the credibility of those sources. For example Cullen writes, “All characterizations of psychopathy in this book were based on the latest research, founded primarily on the work of Dr. Hervey Cleckley and systematically refined by Dr. Robert Hare” (Cullen 414). An entire chapter is dedicated to the recognition of a psychopath based off the widely accepted classifications from Dr. Hervey Cleckley and the psychopathy of Eric Harris. Focusing on the sources and credibility of his findings, Dave Cullen is able to avoid having his book up for debate and thoroughly analyzed. Although many people who think the Columbine shooting is a conspiracy, no one discredits Cullen’s findings due to a fabrication of stories. Dave Cullen distances himself from the purported “non-fiction writers” who stretch the truth as described by James B. Frost, “Writing non-fiction used to be hard. Journalists would spend months researching a topic, pulling their hair out with the devastating thought that their careers might be over if they got the story wrong. Memoirists would contact the subjects in their books, haunted with the idea that getting the facts wrong might damage someone’s life or career. Thanks to “creative non-fiction,” though, those difficult days are gone.” Dave Cullen is able to remain a credible and scrupulous journalist due to the amount of research he dedicated to find the book and not be accused of lying about such a serious event. Through ethos, Dave Cullen is able to portray his novel as reliable and fact-based.
Columbine by Dave Cullen is filled with subtle uses of word manipulation to force perspective onto you. In Columbine, an important topic is the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimonies and how media uses those entertaining (and untrue) stories to gain attention with no consideration of how ruinous they're being. Sometimes, eyewitnesses will confuse stories because of the chaos in the moment, but in other cases “eyewitnesses” will lie about what they saw (with encouragement from the media) for the 5 minutes of fame it offers them. In order to convince readers to agree with his opinion on the fabrication of stories by mass media outlets and fake eyewitnesses, Dave Cullen uses hidden diction techniques that would only be noticed if you were looking for them. For example, when Dave Cullen writes, “Few knew the killers, but they did not volunteer that information, and they were not asked. Yeah, outcasts I heard they were” (Cullen 91) He uses anastrophe, changing the typical structure of a sentence to emphasize the sentence beforehand discussing the information fed by the media. A sentence with the object before the verb grabs your attentions and makes you pause to think about what you just read, so using anastrophe helped Cullen gain attention for his paragraph. With diction and syntax, Dave Cullen encourages readers to see past the intriguing story and read the facts of the Columbine school shooting.
Whenever a major, newsworthy event occurs fake information is distributed through lying eyewitnesses or media outlets. There have been several incidents of tragedy (like the Columbine school shooting) recorded where incorrect information had been distributed by large news networks based off false claims from a "reliable" source. For example, shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings CNN, Fox News, The Boston Globe, and The Associated Press had claimed an arrest had been made. This was untrue, in fact the F.B.I. released a statement criticizing the networks for not doing extensive research and uncovering the lie. Much like Dave Cullen feels, the F.B.I. was agitated with the mistake, writing that such falsified information could have "unintended consequences" for the investigation. In his investigation, Dave Cullen his antipathy for false stories and uncovered the dangerous false claims and how they impact an investigation, just like the F.B.I. said. It is a common occurrence for false information to be released to the public. The diction in Columbine by Dave Cullen is hard to identify because when writing non-fiction crime novels like this one, it is difficult for authors to add personal style. Despite the difficulty of adding individualism to a nonfiction piece, Dave Cullen manages to discreetly use diction to sway the reader’s thinking. When describing the victims of the shooting, Dave Cullen uses words to force sympathy upon the readers instead of jilting the victims. For example, Dave Cullen uses positive words to describe Cassie Bernall, a victim of the shooting, to increase compassion by stating, “He snatched the most unlikely targets. Who would have expected Cassie Bernall to fall? She was the angelic blond junior who’d dressed up for a function at the Marriott on Saturday instead of prom. She was scheduled to speak at her church’s youth group meeting on Tuesday. Cassie’s house sat right beside the Columbine property, but it was only her second year at the school. She’d transferred in from Christian Fellowship School. She had begged her parents to make them move. The Lord had spoken to Cassie. He wanted her to witness the unbelievers at Columbine” (Cullen 43). Through the use of words like “angelic” and the description Cassie’s devotion to God and her church, Dave Cullen is able to humanize the life of Cassie Bernall. Cassie Bernall could have just been another name on a list but by manipulating sentences, Cullen is able to force readers to feel the true tragedy behind her death by revealing her pithy life. Additionally, Dave Cullen dedicated nearly an entire paragraph to the admirable story of William Dave Sanders, a former teacher and coach of 25 years at Columbine High School who fell victim to the shooters after his successful efforts to evacuate students out of the danger zone. Cullen writes, “Dave coached several different sports at Columbine. He started out with the boys but found the girls needed him more… Dave didn’t yell or berate the girls, but he was stern and insistent at practice. Again. Again. He watched quietly on the sidelines, and when he spoke, they could count on analysis or inspiration” (Cullen 31). By describing the positive things people used to describe William Dave Sanders as well as the good things he’s done for his family and the school, Dave Cullen encourages compassion. Through words with positive meaning, Dave Cullen is able to manipulate the reader into seeing the victims as the real people they were instead of a name with no story. The writing of Dave Cullen should be used as a basis for all coverage of banal mass shootings: to focus on remembering the undeserving victims instead of the shooting.
By using short simple sentences in the paragraphs of Columbine, Dave Cullen is able to enhance the importance of time and order in delicate circumstances. Throughout the chapters that describe the events during the mass shooting at Columbine High School, Dave Cullen repeats the word “then” as well as other transition words in simple sentences to highlight the significance of following order and keeping things organized in a highly stressful situation like this. The police officers and paramedics kept stressing the need to follow protocol on time in order to be able to mend the situation so these short sentences almost represent that protocol. For example, when Eric Harris was shooting at Officer Gardner of the Columbine Police Department in a highly dangerous but critical situation where anything could change in a moment, Officer Gardner had to think as clearly as he could despite the panic he was facing. In order to think clearly, Gardner had to follow protocol by carefully and swiftly analyzing things as fast as he could, leading to the importance little time with a lot of detail. The importance of these short moments and details are captured through simple sentences where Dave Cullen writes, “Gardner took cover behind his police car. Eric didn’t even hit that. Then his rifle jammed. Dylan fled into the school. Gardner saw his opening. He laid his pistol across the roof and squeezed off four shots. Eric spun around like he’d been hit. Neutralized, Gardner thought. What a relief” (Cullen 68). In this particular passage, Cullen is able to use chronological order with simple sentences and short details to express Gardner’s quick thinking in his writing. When reading crime based novels, it is important to pay attention to the way information is presented to you.
In July of this year, researchers used a mathematical contagion model, which is typically used to estimate the spread of diseases, to determine if media attention affects the recurrence of mass shootings. The findings were substantial, determining that 30% of mass killings and 22% of school shootings were inspired by previous events with a lot of media coverage. Lead author of the study, Sherry Towers claimed that when there was no media coverage of the mass killings there was no contagion but when there was a lot of media coverage, there was a lot of contagion. In Columbine, Dave Cullen explored the mass shootings leading up to the incident at Columbine High School in 1999 to show the pattern of contagion one mass shooting can have, writing, “In February 1997, a sixteen-year-old in remote Bethel, Alaska, brought a shotgun to high school and opened fire. He killed the principal and a student and injured two others. In October, another boy shot up his school, this time in Pearl, Mississippi. Two dead students, seven wounded. Two more sprees erupted in December, in remote locales: West Paducah, Kentucky and Stamps, Arkansas. Seven were dead by the end of the year, sixteen wounded. The following year was worse; ten dead, thirty-five wounded, in five separate incidents. Shooting season, they began to call it” (Cullen 23). Even though the first school shooting ever did not happen in 1997, the coverage of that school shooting escalated the timetable of other ones. The previous shooters “fame” made the prospect of having that attention appealing to others and encouraged them to take their anger out aggressively to be memorable. To control public distress, the CDC released date that showed a child’s chance of dying at school was one in a million. Despite the fact that there are nearly 70 million children in school in America and an increase in frequency of school shootings, the statistics provided by the CDC calmed everyone down and no one took notice of the effects of media coverage when it was necessary. Now, in 2015, we see the staggering evidence that mass media greatly effects the frequency of school shootings and are faced with a question that should’ve been addressed 17 years ago: how do we effectively and legally control the media’s access and output of mass shooting information?
Columbine is a nonfiction book about the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 told through the investigation of former journalist Dave Cullen. Dave Cullen carefully analyzed and described the tragic events that took place at Columbine High School. Not only does Columbine describe the horrific moments of the shooting as it took place, but it explains the events leading up to the shooting and the aftermath. By explaining the minds of the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebod, as well as the general life of other students at Columbine High School, Dave Cullen is able to provide a unique insight into the minds of mass murderers to help people better understand why 2 high school boys would cause so much destruction and heartbreak. Eric Harris was a smart, rebellious, and charming young man who seemed reliable and headstrong. On the other hand, Dylan Klebod was a shy, self-conscious, and emotionally charged (unreliable) young man. Their differences were highlighted by an encounter Dylan had with Dean Peter Horvath after Dylan was caught vandalizing a freshman’s locker, “When Dean Peter Horvath called him down, Dylan went ballistic. He cussed the dean out, bounced off the walls, acted like a nutcase. Eric could have talked his way out with apologies, evasions, or claims of innocence – whatever that subject was susceptible to. He read people quickly and tailored his responses. Eric was unflappable; Dylan erupted. He had no clue what Dean Horvath would respond to, nor did he care. He was pure emotion. Logic was irrelevant” (Cullen 18). Both boys were intelligent, but often Dylan was too emotional to think things through whereas Eric analyzed everything he did. Despite their many differences, Eric and Dylan were best friends. They were both math wizards who adored technology, they both resented authority figures, and they were both frustrated with their classmates who they viewed as incompetent. Dylan and Eric continued on their daily life as well as planning their future as if they hadn’t been planning on dying for several weeks. Dylan had planned to go to University of Arizona to become a computer engineer and even picked out a dorm room. In contrast, Eric had told his parents he was not interested in college but responded to a Marine recruiter to appease them. Shortly before the shooting, Eric and Dylan had been described as different; skipping classes more classes than normal: missing homework assignments, and falling asleep in class. Eric was curiously unemotional as well as consistently frustrated for no given reason. Their behavioral changes were so subtle no one in their wildest dreams could have imagined what awful thing they were about to do. This rare look into the minds of serial killers provides a thorough psychoanalysis that accurately explains the reasoning behind the worst school shooting in American history.
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BooksAll the Light We Cannot See Archives
February 2016
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