118 pages • 3 hours read
Anthony DoerrA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 0, Chapters 1-8
Part 1, Chapters 9-31
Part 2, Chapters 32-36
Part 3, Chapters 37-61
Part 4, Chapters 62-67
Part 5, Chapters 68-95
Part 6, Chapters 96-100
Part 7, Chapters 101-120
Part 8, Chapters 121-128
Part 9, Chapters 129-147
Part 10, Chapters 148-165
Part 11, Chapters 166-167
Part 12, Chapters 168-177
Part 13, Chapter 178
Character Analysis
Symbols & Motifs
Themes
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Quiz
Tools
A six-year-old Marie-Laure tours the Natural History Museum in Paris, where her father works as a locksmith, with other children. The tour director tells them a fantastic story about a jewel kept in the museum called the Sea of Flames. In the story their guide tells, the Goddess of the Earth made the jewel for her lover, the God of the Sea. She sent it down a river toward her love, but a prince stole the jewel from a dry riverbed, not realizing the Goddess of the Earth had cursed the jewel—whoever found it and kept it would live forever but would suffer misfortune after misfortune until the jewel was returned to its home: the sea. Eventually, the jewel came into the possession of a duke in Lorraine, who had it locked away for 200 years inside the museum. The tour director suggests that a diamond that large could buy five Eiffel Towers. Marie-Laure wonders aloud why someone doesn’t just throw the accursed object back into the sea, and a boy says, “When was the last time you saw someone throw five Eiffel Towers into the sea?” (23). One month later, Marie-Laure is blind.
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By Anthony Doerr