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"But she is angry. At Etienne for doing so little, at Madame Manec for doing so much, at her father not being here to help her understand his absence. At her eyes for failing her. At everything and everyone. Who knew love could kill you?"
This quotation comes from the chapter “He Is Not Coming Back” in Part Five, and it reveals the suffering that Marie-Laure experiences in the wake of her father’s disappearance. While she often exhibits resilience and has a largely positive outlook on life, losing her lifelong companion sends her into a downward spiral. This shift in Marie-Laure’s character serves as a reminder that, despite her overall maturity, she is still a child enduring highly traumatic experiences. She is not immune to the pain that the uncertainty of war inevitably causes.
"Now her world has turned gray. Gray faces and gray quiet and a gray nervous terror hanging over the queue at the bakery and the only color in the world briefly kindled when Etienne climbs the stairs to the attic, knees cracking, to read one more string of numbers into the ether, to send another of Madame Ruelle's messages, to play a song."
As the war drags on, Marie-Laure finds purpose in helping Etienne transmit secret messages over the radio. The distinction she makes between her gray world and the color that these small acts of resistance bring to it, appearing in this quotation from “Gray” in Part Seven, highlights her inherently hopeful outlook. Marie-Laure can still identify bright spots among her otherwise bleak life in Nazi-occupied Saint-Malo, and this resilience gives her the strength necessary to survive even the darkest of scenarios.
“Werner thinks of her, whether he wishes to or not. Girl with a cane, girl made of mist. That air of otherworldliness in the snarls of her hair and the fearlessness of her step. She takes up residence inside him, a living doppelgänger to face down the dead Viennese girl who haunts him every night.”
Although this quotation, which comes from the “The Girl” chapter in Part Nine, is from Werner’s point of view, it offers important information about how Marie-Laure presents herself publicly. Beyond the fact that she seems otherworldly and haunts his imagination, Werner notes that she possesses a distinct confidence as she navigates the world around her. This outward display of self-assuredness serves her as she engages in acts of resistance against the Nazis, allowing her to convince the German soldiers of her innocence when questioned.
