Flower girl with the third eye

[faithadler]

In the last stretch of reading in the book, we run into some rather interesting quotes. "Dead girl in the sky, dead girl out the window, dead girl three inches away. Two wet eyes and that third eye of the bullet hole never blinking," (397 Doerr). On the next page, he continues. "Behind them, six flowering marigolds in the dusk form the shape of the dead girl, then become flowers once more," (398 Doerr). Finally, while Werner was stuck with Volkheimer and Bernd, we get a final vision. "A seven-year-old girl presses her face up against his, and in the center of her forehead he can see a hole blacker than the blackness around him, at the bottom of which teems a dark city full of souls, ten thousand, five hundred thousand, all these faces staring up from alleys, from windows, from smoldering parks, and he hears thunder," (450 Doerr). Throughout the quotes, there seems to be A common theme of a young girl with a "third eye". What is the significance of these quotes? Do they relate to eachother?

[sophielowy]

The quotes are all about the guilt that Werner carries on his shoulders due to the death of the little girl with the cape. It is hard for Werner to let the death slide due to the fact that the girl was innocent. Within the novel and the quotes it is clear that the little girl continues to haunt Werner for his mistake. After all Werner was the one who lead the men to the little girl and women's house. Although Werner did not pull the trigger he still holds the deaths on his shoulders. The quotes are all just the times that Werner is reminded of the girl who never blinked back to life because the bullet went through her head. Deep down Werner views the little girl as a reminder of all the lives, innocent or not, that were lost with the war.

[jackh]

These quotes depict the young girl that was killed earlier in the book, along with her mother, and the "third eye" is the bullet hole in her head. Although this is a very dark and sad part of the book, it helps to set up for what will happen later. The author decided to have this happen not only to exhibit the horrors of the war back in that time, but also to illuminate why Werner was suffering from such severe depression and guilt later in the book. Although Werner himself did not kill the girl and her mother, he led the people who did to them. Knowing that their deaths were uncalled for and that they were innocent, Werner became very upset about his mistakes. When he visited Marie-Laure's house in the night and saw the antenna, he didn't want to cause any harm to them and decided to keep it to himself. This may be partially because of his guilt from accidentally causing the death of the little girl and her mother. The accidental death pulled Werner out of the daze of war, and he realized that what's right to do trumps what his commanders tell him to do. Without feeling the remorse of the girl's death, he might not have found it in his heart to take pity on Marie-Laure and her great uncle.