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Summary
Chapters 6-10
Chapter 6
The next morning, Isabelle and Gaëtan join the large crowds of people moving south. She asks him why he was imprisoned, and he tells her that he is a communist and was arrested for burglary. During the arduous walk, they encounter despondent French soldiers moving away from the conflict, which makes Gaëtan furious. After three days of walking, planes fly overhead and drop bombs on the evacuees. Amid the carnage and bloodshed, Gaëtan protects Isabelle and they make their way towards a church for shelter, but a bomb destroys the church.
Chapter 7
In Carriveau, Vianne’s students are preoccupied with the topic of the war. As their daughters play, Vianne and Rachel discuss the news that has reached them from Paris, including the difficulties faced by evacuees. Though Vianne is worried about Isabelle, who has not yet made it to Carriveau, Rachel assures her that Isabelle is tough and brave. Later that day, Vianne is in her garden when she sees three women, tired and hungry, making their way down the road. She offers the evacuees water and food and realizes that one of them is carrying a dead baby. The three women move on quickly as the large crowd of evacuees follows behind, and Vianne, unable to help so many people, locks her windows and doors despite their desperate pleas for food and water.
Unbeknownst to Vianne, Isabelle and Gaëtan are part of the large group of evacuees, and they sleep in the garden because the doors of Le Jardin are locked. The next morning, the two kiss to commemorate their plan to make a difference in the war, but Gaëtan quietly leaves Isabelle as she sleeps, leaving a note that tells her that she is not “ready” for war. When Vianne wakes up, she sees that her garden has been destroyed by the hungry crowds and is shocked to discover Isabelle outside. While Vianne bathes her sister, who is covered in dirt and blood as a result of her arduous journey, Isabelle reflects bitterly upon her abandonment by Gaëtan. Vianne prepares food for the starving Isabelle as a radio broadcast by WWI hero Maréchal Pétain announces the surrender of France to Nazi Germany. The sisters disagree about the announcement, with Isabelle insisting that Vianne is a fool for believing that Hitler can be reasoned with.
Chapter 8
Life in France is quickly transformed by the surrender. The nation is divided between an occupation zone under direct control of the Nazis, and the Free Zone, led by Pétain’s Vichy government in collaboration with the Nazis. Carriveau is in the occupation zone and contact between towns is severely limited. One day, when Isabelle, Vianne, and Sophie wait in a long line to obtain food rations, a long line of German troops march through the town, making their way to the town center, where gunshots are heard. Back at Le Jardin, an enraged Isabelle suggests that they make their way toward the Free Zone, but Vianne argues that the war is over, and they must stay where they are. Frustrated that she can do nothing to support the war effort, Isabelle collects all valuable goods in the home and some emergency provisions, hiding them beneath a trap door in the barn in case of emergencies. That night, in a BBC radio broadcast, Charles de Gaulle promises that France will continue to fight Germany, inspiring Isabelle.
The Nazis demand that everyone in the town assemble for a mandatory meeting. There, a member of the Nazi Gestapo insults the defeated French soldiers and informs the residents of Carriveau that guns and radios are now forbidden, threatening death to anyone who fails to surrender these items. That night, a young Wehrmacht captain named Wolfgang Beck politely but forcefully insists upon “billeting” (taking up residence) alongside Vianne’s family at her home, further enraging Isabelle, who expresses her frustrations openly. Vianne, hoping to keep the peace, demands that Isabelle keep her thoughts to herself.
Chapter 9
After a tense dinner with Beck at Le Jardin, Isabelle insists that she must leave Carriveau. Though Vianne protests, Isabelle argues that she will, inevitably, place Vianne and Sophie in danger by getting in trouble with the occupying Nazis. Despite their many disagreements, the two sisters embrace as Isabelle prepares to return to Paris. However, when she tries to leave town in violation of the curfew, a Nazi soldier commands her to return home, as she does not have a pass to travel to Paris. For the next week, Isabelle resolves to stay out of trouble while living at Le Jardin. However, when she sees a large antisemitic propaganda poster, she draws a “V” for “victory,” over it. However, a man grabs her wrist, pushes her against the poster, and informs her that her actions are illegal.
Chapter 10
As Vianne prepares for the final day of school, Isabelle is forced into a building by the man who saw her defacing the Nazi poster. Scared that these men might be members of the Gestapo, she notes that they are French rather than German. The large, strong man who brought her there is named Didier. In addition, there is an old man, a boy, a tall man dressed in rags, and a handsome young man named Henri Navarre, whom Isabelle identifies as a communist and who appears to be the leader of the group. They identify themselves as members of a growing resistance to the Nazi occupation that is aligned with de Gaulle in opposition to Pétain, and they ask Isabelle to distribute tracts, written by a printer in Paris, that express the ideas of the resistance. Isabelle, who believes that her youth and beauty will help her evade detection and punishment, excitedly agrees to distribute the tracts, hiding them in a basket. That night, she breaks curfew and distributes the tracts to various homes in the village.
Analysis
Despite being sisters, Vianne and Isabelle have very different personalities and worldviews. These chapters expand upon some of these key differences, highlighting some of the tensions that lie beneath the surface of their troubled relationship. The obedient Vianne lives a conventional life in the countryside, attending to her family and working at a local school. When war comes to France, her chief priority is the safety of her daughter, Sophie. While she does not enjoy the presence of the German troops in the village, she is willing to follow their rules and treat them politely. She is surprised that the German soldiers appear quite ordinary and well-behaved, and she treats Beck with courtesy, as though he is a guest at her house, despite her initial reluctance to admit a man into her home. Her priority, at this stage in the novel, is to maintain a sense of normalcy and reassure her daughter and the other children at the school.
Read an in-depth character analysis of Vianne Rossignol.
For Vianne, Petain’s decision to collude with the German government is a practical one, even if she finds the occupation uncomfortable. Unlike her younger sister, she has dim memories of the first world war and believes that Petain’s difficult decision has spared France from a protracted and bloody war with Germany. Whenever she is unsure how to act, or has doubts about the future, Vianne reassures herself that Antoine will return and set everything right. Though her desire to stay out of trouble with the Germans is responsible and practical, Vianne’s naivete is highlighted by the fact that she believes that the Germans will leave soon and that everything will return to normal when her husband returns home. She is, in these early chapters of the novel, heavily reliant upon her husband to make decisions.
In contrast, Isabelle is bold and brave though somewhat reckless. She is far less optimistic than her older sister regarding the occupation by the German troops, and she argues that Petain’s decision to surrender to Germany was a cowardly mistake. Though she understands Isabelle’s desire to keep Sophie safe, she nevertheless argues that Isabelle cannot simply hide from reality by pretending that the war is not happening. Her passionate opposition to the Nazis is partially motivated by her own direct experience of their atrocities. During her arduous trek back to Carriveau, she narrowly survived bombing by German aircraft, which killed many innocent people, primarily women, children, and the elderly. Unlike Vianne, she cannot even pretend to tolerate the presence of the German troops in Carriveau. Unmoved by Beck’s polite behavior, she is openly hostile to him, cutting off her blonde hair after he compliments it. Many of her actions put her at risk of danger. She avoids punishment when she breaks the 9 PM curfew, but her far more serious decision to distribute newsletters for the small resistance group carries a grave risk of death.
The two sisters also differ in how they understand the role of women in war. Vianne believes that her role, as a woman, is to manage her household and stay out of trouble as she awaits the return of her husband. Isabelle, in contrast, feels frustrated by Isabelle’s attempt to maintain domestic routines, wishing instead that she could do more to help her nation resist the Germans. Her heroes are women who participated in war, whether as nurses or ambulance drivers, and they inspire her to take action, as do the stirring words of Resistance leader Charles De Gaulle. Her chance encounter with the French resistance provides her with an opportunity to put her beliefs into practice, and she eagerly embraces her new role. Though her motivations are good and her actions courageous, Vianne is in some ways still quite immature. She believes that she can talk her way out of any difficult situation because she is a pretty young woman, underestimating the serious risks involved in her participation in the Resistance.
Read more about the theme of Sexism and Female Heroism in The Nightingale.
