Table of contentsWerner's blindnessLife is like a restless mazeAnother significant symbol is the maze, which essentially represents the troubles that Marie-Laure faces, in particular the blindness which makes his whole life similar to that of Marie-Laure. a maze. Marie-Laure listens to her logic when faced with a problem, because she is used to managing labyrinths. When he was diagnosed with a “congenital cataract. Bilateral. Irreparable,” the “spaces she once knew as familiar… [became] labyrinths bristling with danger” (Doerr 27). She is forced to look at the objects around her differently and move around those objects using the new skills she develops. His father teaches him to “travel the paths of logic”. Every outcome has its cause and every difficult situation has its solution. Every lock has its key” (Doerr 111). Marie-Laure's blindness trains her to approach the unknowable with sensitivity, and her father's love allows her to manage blindness. However, when Marie-Laure is confronted with her father's imprisonment, the love she once depended on is taken away from her and she sinks into a depression in which "everything in the house scares her... she is angry... [and ] every second, it’s as if her father is moving further away” (Doerr 226). She has lost focus and no longer has the motivation to face her problems. We have to wait until she goes to see “the ocean!” Right in front of her! and “the labyrinth of Saint-Malo opened to a portal of sound greater than anything she had ever known,” that Marie-Laure is once again able to face the labyrinth (Doerr 231). She falls in love with the awe-inspiring ocean and discovers in that love a passion for the beauty of the outside world that she once considered too overwhelming to face. With this newfound motivation, she can emotionally deal with the loss of her father and choose her next steps in life with the logic she was taught. It is with this renewed love and passion that Marie-Laure relearns to face her blindness and its problems. The symbol of the labyrinth appears in Werner's life, as Germany is described as an "ever more alive, ever more alive country." expanding machine” with factories, businesses, and streets filled with worker ants (Doerr 69). Essentially, it looks like a maze. For example, in Saint-Malo, “it is whispered, the Germans renovated two kilometers of underground corridors under the medieval wall; they built new defenses, new conduits, new escape routes, underground complexes of mind-boggling complexity” (Doerr 10). The Germans transformed their own country into a foreign and intimidating land, a threatening labyrinth. Much of Germany's fear is due to its intimidating army, which fights in seemingly unwavering unity with the attitude that "All is glory and fatherland, competition and sacrifice" (Doerr 62). Werner is lost in all this nationalism; he is lost in the labyrinth of Germany that sings blasphemy as if it were pure truth and defines purity as a list of required genetics. Germany, which orders its soldiers: “Don't trust your minds” because they “always drift towards ambiguity, towards questions, when what you really need is certainty. Aim. Clarity” (Doerr 264). Germany perpetuates the labyrinth, because unlike Marie-Claire's quest for reason, it calls for a complete disregard for thought processes instead of uncompromising patriotism. To escape this labyrinth, Werner also finds love, both withinthe sea than in Marie-Claire. When Werner describes the sea, he says: “It is, I think, the best thing I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself looking at him and forget my homework” (Doerr 405). Here, Doerr directly compares Werner and Marie-Laure, as they follow two opposite paths and yet are attracted by the same force of nature. This is a dramatic irony, in that the reader can see the unity of passion between the characters before the characters themselves realize their love. This dramatic irony foreshadows Werner's eventual focus on Marie-Laure as motivation to act on his inner heart of compassion. Werner describes his first meeting with Marie-Laure in the same way: “Why are Werner’s hands shaking? Why can’t he catch his breath?… This, he thinks, is the pure one they always talked about at Schulpforta” (Doerr 413). In both cases, Werner stops participating in a work that he truly believes is wrong, because he saw something he liked. He is so overcome with emotion at seeing his heart's desire that he cannot pretend that his heart desires anything else. This is how Werner frees himself from the labyrinth. In Hope of LoveElsewhere, the radio is a symbol of hope for Werner. When he first listens to the radio, the world around Werner “is the same as it always was… Yet now there is music. As if, in Werner’s head, an infinitesimal orchestra had come to life” (Doerr 33). Although Werner is stuck in an orphan's home, destined to work in the dangerous coal mine that orphaned him, radio is a way to escape this desperate reality and dream of a different future. In fact, Doerr establishes Werner's morality with radio, because "Werner's favorite radio show is about light: eclipses and sundials, aurora and wavelengths." The radio speaker teaches: “What is visible light called? We call this color. But the electromagnetic spectrum goes toward zero in one direction and toward infinity in the other, so actually, kids, mathematically, all light is invisible” (Doerr 53). This program is metaphorical and shows the equality of all humanity in seeing light, that technically all are blind because light exists both infinitely and not at all. Werner's appreciation for this program reveals his moral beliefs in the value of light and the equality of all human beings. This highlights the height of corruption that occurs as this quest to escape the fate of the coal mines consumes Werner, and “in his nightmares he paces the tunnels of the mines. The ceiling is smooth and black; slabs of it descend on him as he walks” (Doerr 68-69). This fear of being trapped perverts him. Instead of hoping for love, Werner places his hopes in his future success and in the possible luxuries to which his talents give him access. Therein lies the risk of hope; that humanity can hope in a force of corruption. In this case, the radio which “connects a million ears to a single mouth” broadcasts “in the loudspeakers of the entire Zollverein the jerky voice of the Reich”, which “grows like an imperturbable tree; its subjects lean toward its branches as toward the lips of God” (Doerr 63). Werner's misplaced hope is only a reflection of the whole of Germany, which hopes in Hitler, losing sight of morality as it seeks prosperity. It is only later, at the Hôtel des Abeilles, that Werner uses the radio for the right reasons and finds another source of hope. Werner is stuck and “the radio is hopeless. He wants to close his eyes, forget, give up… But Volkheimer wants to argue that life is worth living” (Doerr 211). The friend and partner.