Pine cones on the Windowsill

[isabelleansberry]

    "It will be okay," she whispers. Her hand finds his forearm. "We will stay here awhile and then we will go back to our apartment and the pinecones will be right where we left them and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea will be on the floor of the key pound where we left it and no one will be in our beds" (Doerr 130).

     I noticed that in the book, Marie-Laure has a very strong sense of order and symmetry, and she likes things to be where she leaves them, and needs assurance that her things will be where they are, and that everything will be okay. Why do you think this is so important to Marie-Laure? Do her pinecones lined up on the windowsill symbolize her need of safety and structure? Is it a way of coping with the chaos of the war during the crazy times she lives in? What does this show about Marie-Luare's character? 

[Sara S.]

I think that Marie-Laure's longing for order comes from her blindness. As she grew up, she navigated her world using a map of the city, a maze of buildings that never changed. She knew the number of steps from one place to another, and could find her way by hearing and touch. With the tools of her other senses and the map of her town, she was able to behave like a normal person. However, when Marie-Laure is in a new place, her disability affects her more severely because she no longer has the tools to navigate. Marie-Laure relies on things being in the same place as when they were placed there in order to feel more independent.

[ninaseidel]

I agree with Sara, Marie-Laure desperately needs order to have any kind of independence. It is crucial to her when she is navigating the city but her need for consistency and order transfers into less significant things like pinecones on a windowsill because without consistency she is almost entirely lost in the world.

[keelylipp]

I think that the need for symmetry in Marie-Laure relates to her blindness and the feeling that she is losing control over everything in her life. First, she loses her eyesight at the age of six, making everyday life difficult, scary, and dark. Then, her beloved city is bombed along with everything she ever knew and loved. When she made a new home in Saint-Malo and a few months later her father disappears, she feels as if she has finally lost hold of everything in her life, and even goes into a state of depression. She longs for the symmetry and love of her old life and her home in Paris.