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The Nightingale

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The book uses the frame story literary device; the frame is presented in first-person narration as the remembrances of an elderly woman in 1995, whose name is initially not revealed. She has a son named Julien and lives off the coast of Oregon. However, the main action of the book is told in third-person, following two sisters, Vianne Mauriac and Isabelle Rossignol, who live in France around 1939, on the eve of World War II. The two sisters are estranged from each other and their father, and the book follows the two different paths they take.

Vianne, the eldest sister, is a married schoolteacher raising her 8-year-old daughter Sophie in her childhood home named Le Jardin in the town of Carriveau. Vianne's husband Antoine is drafted and subsequently captured as a prisoner of war. At home, Vianne copes with the occupation of France after defeat by the Germans, and struggles to keep her and her daughter surviving in the face of poor food rations, the loss of her job, and dwindling money left behind by Antoine.

She is forced to accept billeting of Wehrmacht and SS officers at her home, and sees the increasing persecution of the Jews in town. The first officer billeted at her home is Wolfgang Beck, a kindly man who has a family in Germany. The second is Von Richter, a more sadistic officer who subjects Vianne to physical and sexual abuse.

Later in the novel, Vianne's best friend, Rachel de Champlain, is deported to a concentration camp. Vianne adopts Rachel's three-year-old son, Ari, and renames him as "Daniel" to hide his Jewish identity. Soon after, Vianne undertakes to hide nineteen more Jewish children in a nearby abbey's orphanage. Meanwhile, Von Richter uses sexual violence as a means of control over Vianne.

When the war ends, Antoine returns from the POW camp, but they must both cope with the aftermath of the occupation. Vianne is 1 month pregnant by Von Richter, but she decides not to tell her husband this. She has come to love Ari like a son, but must give him up as his cousins in the United States claim him to be raised there.

Isabelle, the younger and more impetuous sister, decides to take an active role in resisting the occupation. After being expelled from finishing school, she travels from Paris to Carriveau on foot, meeting a young rebel named Gaëtan Dubois along the way. In Carriveau, she joins the French Resistance and is initially tasked with distributing anti-Nazi propaganda.

After moving to a cell in Paris, she develops a plan to help downed Allied airmen escape to the British embassy in neutral Spain, from where they can be repatriated. She is successful, and with support from other Resistance operators (including her father, with whom she begins to rebuild a relationship) and the British MI9, this becomes her primary task throughout the war.

She earns the code name "Nightingale", and is actively hunted by the Nazis. She is eventually captured. Although her father falsely confesses to being the Nightingale to save her, she is sent to a concentration camp in Germany. She undergoes hellish conditions at the camp but survives long enough to see the end of the war. She makes her way to Vianne, and they reconcile. She reunites with Gaëtan briefly before dying from typhus and pneumonia, which she contracted at the camp.

The elderly narrator is revealed to be Vianne, who receives an invitation to an event in Paris to honor her sister, "The Nightingale". She travels with her son Julien, who has never been told about his family's activities during the war or his true father. After the event, Vianne reunites with Ari, and she comes to peace with her memories of the war.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

823 HAN n

Penerbit

USA : St. Martins Press.., 2015

Deskripsi Fisik

564 p.: 23 cm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

978-0-31257-722-3

Klasifikasi

823

Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

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Subjek

novel Inggris
World War II
historical fiction novel
novel sejarah

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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