Summary With Beck in Vianne’s home, tensions are high. Isabelle can barely hold her tongue, and she worries she’ll place Sophie’s safety in jeopardy if she says something incendiary. Vianne, meanwhile, tries to keep the peace. Isabelle decides to leave for Paris, but she is stopped on her way out […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 9Summary and Analysis Chapter 8
Summary Food becomes scarce, and eventually Nazis occupy Carriveau. Isabelle, who is outspoken in her hatred of the Germans, hides all of her family’s valuables in the cellar beneath the barn. On the radio, she hears a broadcast from a man named General de Gaulle, who argues that even though […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 8Summary and Analysis Chapter 7
Summary Vianne tells Rachel she is worried about Isabelle, who was supposed to be on her way from Paris but hasn’t arrived. Later that day, three refugees carrying a dead infant come to Vianne’s door asking for food and water, which she gives them. A whole crowd of refugees follows […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 7Summary and Analysis Chapter 6
Summary When Gaetan and Isabelle wake the following morning, Gaetan explains that he had been imprisoned for theft. He insists that someone like Isabelle wouldn’t understand, but Isabelle maintains that more than one kind of prison exists. As they travel toward Carriveau, they meet a regiment of French soldiers fleeing […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 6Summary and Analysis Chapter 5
Summary As people evacuate Paris to escape the approaching Germans, Julien sends Isabelle to stay with Vianne in Carriveau despite Isabelle’s objection that she wants to stay and fight against the Germans. Isabelle travels with the Humbert family at first; however, when the car runs out of gasoline and they […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 5Summary and Analysis Chapter 4
Summary Eighteen-year-old Isabelle is expelled from a French girls’ school for talking back to her teachers. She is sent back to Paris to live with her father, Julien, the very person who sent her to the school to be rid of her. In Paris, ignored by Julien, Isabelle reveals to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 4Summary and Analysis Chapter 3
Summary Agonizing over her husband’s coming departure, Vianne visits her best friend, Rachel. Rachel’s husband is also going to war, and Rachel wonders if her newborn son, Ari, will remember his father. Vianne and Rachel try to think of positive things about their husbands’ departures (like smaller loads of laundry), […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 3Summary and Analysis Chapter 2
Summary In 1939, in her home in Carriveau, France, Vianne watches her husband, Antoine, and her daughter, Sophie, get ready for a picnic. She thinks back to her own childhood: the death of her mother when she was 14, the emotional absence of her father, and the neediness and constant […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 2Summary and Analysis Chapter 1
Summary In 1995, an unnamed elderly woman in Oregon remembers the loved ones she lost during World War II. She is in the middle of packing, preparing to move to a retirement community at her son’s request. In her attic, she finds a trunk full of war memorabilia, including an […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 1Character List
Major Characters Vianne (Rossignol) Mauriac The older daughter of Julien Rossignol and one of the novel’s heroines. Her mother died when she was 14 years old. In due course, Vianne found solace by marrying Antoine Mauriac, whose affection distracted her from the emotional absence of her father and the neediness […]
Read more Character List