The Room on Rue Amélie

“Charlotte was startled to realize that the voice belonged to a woman. Had Monsieur Benoit taken a mistress? While Ruby was pregnant? Icy anger coursed through Charlotte’s veins.”

Although Charlotte is still young this early in the novel, this moment illustrates the protectiveness she feels toward Ruby and the strong bond they already have. Her reaction to Marcel’s perceived dishonesty is one of several examples of Charlotte’s need to care for and protect those she loves, reflecting The Nature of Love During a Crisis.

“She stared at him for a long time. What had she seen in him when their eyes first met across that cafe in New York? What had made her so sure that he was worth giving up her life for? She could hardly remember anymore.”

At this point, Ruby is beginning to mature out of her previous idealistic innocence, realizing that she and Marcel are not as compatible as she first believed. This moment of introspection illustrates how she is becoming more self-aware and taking stock of the choices she has made so far. Her attention to the place where her adventure began—New York—also highlights the way the geographical distance she has crossed acts as a metaphor for the emotional distance she has traveled.

“Marcel had spent so much time making her feel useless that it was easier than she’d expected to behave as if she was. Perhaps he had helped her after all. Perhaps the foolishness he had projected on her was the perfect cover.”

Ruby’s marriage with Marcel becomes seriously strained as the war begins and as Marcel becomes involved in the French Resistance (See: Background). Ruby must confront The Experience of Identity and Coming-of-Age, as she grapples with being an immigrant and with trying to find her footing in an increasingly untenable marital dynamic.

“I went from being a brave adventurer to simply being a wife, nothing more. It would be easy to blame it on Marcel, but it was just as much my fault. I let him talk over my opinions. I let him make all the decisions. I let him push me to the side, until I wasn’t myself in our marriage anymore.”

This excerpt uses anaphora, a literary device that uses repeated words or phrases for emphasis. Here, Ruby repeats the phrase “I let him” in order to take responsibility for her own part in her domestic oppression. This shows how she is growing out of her previous naïveté and innocence into a strong and self-aware woman.

“She knew the bread was likely stale and the cheese was probably old, but somehow, it smelled like the most delicious thing in the world.”

Food is a recurring motif throughout the novel, used to forge connections and express gratitude for what life still has to offer (See: Symbols & Motifs). Although this meal is lackluster (“stale” and “old”), it’s made transcendent by the human connection taking place. In this moment, the “delicious” experience comes not from the food itself, but from the act of making and sharing food with one another.

“Her mother had once told her that some people you meet are meant to be a part of your world forever, but some are meant only to change the course of your life and then move on.”

Ruby and Charlotte meet a wide range of people throughout the novel, including both pilots and fellow Resistance workers. After a point they stop being distinct and memorable, yet the women play a pivotal role in the journey they take. This quote suggests a widespread interconnectivity, or “network,” as mentioned in the following quotation, of people affecting each other’s paths in small yet significant ways through The Impact of Everyday Heroism.

“Thomas found himself wondering just how extensive the network was. It was amazing to think of all the French and Belgian civilians who were risking their own lives to return men to war.”

Here, Thomas reflects on The Impact of Everyday Heroism of strangers across the continent who are taking steps to support the war effort in their own ways. Even though these people are not recognized in the same way as soldiers and pilots, their invisible contributions directed the course of history. This network of allied strangers continues the thread of people coming together against violence and oppression.

“It wasn’t that Charlotte thought she couldn’t trust her parents; it was that she didn’t want one more thing weighing on them. They were already drowning in their worries.”

Charlotte’s trait of stepping forward to protect her loved ones is a continuous feature in her character, as illustrated previously in her devotion to Ruby. Growing up in wartime, particularly one in which her family is at particularly high risk, forces Charlotte to grow and mature more quickly than her peers, reflecting The Experience of Identity and Coming-of-Age.

“[I]t’s what’s inside a person that counts. And sometimes, you have to walk through fire in order to find your true self. Maybe this is your fire.”

This line is an allusion to the concept of “baptism by fire,” or rebirth through painful or extreme means. Ruby draws from her Catholic upbringing to encourage Charlotte to look at her hardship in another way. Ruby’s words help Charlotte draw strength from life’s challenges.

“Ruby knew that there wasn’t enough time to change Monsieur Dacher’s mind, so she nodded at him, locked eyes with Madame Dacher for a few awful seconds, and led a sobbing Charlotte down the hall and into her own apartment.”

Madame Dacher here asks Ruby to take Charlotte into hiding, as she fears that the Nazis are about to come and arrest the family. The connection between Ruby and Madame Dacher illustrates her understanding of her fate before it happens. In saving her daughter, Madame Dacher illustrates the maternal dimension of The Nature of Love During a Crisis.

“She had the feeling that this particular officer was distressed to be a part of these roundups, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his job if it came down to it.”

The novel takes a complex and nuanced look at humanity rather than positioning people into heroes and villains. This moment illustrates the way everyday people make difficult decisions in order to survive in a totalitarian environment. This officer lacks the malice and cruelty of his colleagues but bends his morals to keep himself (and possibly his family) stable and safe.

“Charlotte stared at her, and in the silence, Ruby heard the words the girl hadn’t spoken. She wasn’t a child anymore. She hadn’t been for a long time; the war had changed them all.”

Charlotte undergoes a broad coming-of-age arc in which she grows from an idealistic young girl to a capable and heroic woman. In this moment, Ruby is able to take a step back from her own concerns and see her friend in a new way. This marks the beginning of a new stage of their journey together.

“This apartment had been the site of much sadness, but it had also been the place where she’d met Charlotte and Thomas. The bitter always came with the sweet.”

The balance of light and darkness is a recurring idea throughout the novel, with several characters acknowledging the duality of good and evil around them at various points. Here, Ruby examines a place that played a formative role in her story (and which becomes the title of the novel). It was the site of some horrific memories and many petty insults from her husband, yet it was also a place in which she made some of the most valuable connections of her life.

“Her only mission now was to protect Charlotte, and she had thought she was doing that to the best of her ability. But she’d forgotten, somewhere along the way, that Charlotte might not want to be protected anymore.”

In Ruby’s single-mindedness, she rendered herself temporarily unaware of the changes taking place in front of her. With so much chaos happening around them, Ruby becomes somewhat unaware of the passage of time and what that means for a preteen girl entering womanhood. This moment marks a turning point in their relationship as Ruby accepts the changes that are happening within Charlotte, and they begin a new chapter of life together as equals.

“There was a lightness to Charlotte that hadn’t been there before and Ruby recognized it as a sense of purpose. Charlotte was finally playing a role in saving herself.”

Allowing Charlotte to stand on her own is an act of courage and release for Ruby. Here, she recognizes that her choice was the right one and that Charlotte is becoming stronger because of it. As Charlotte finds this sense of purpose within herself, she begins to discover and build her own personal identity through The Impact of Everyday Heroism in her work with the Resistance.

“Hanukkah began on December 22 that year, and although it was too risky to have a menorah, Ruby, Thomas, and Lucien joined Charlotte in lighting a single white candle on the first night of the Festival of Lights.”

This moment is particularly notable because it demonstrates how people from different religions and cultures come together in shared human connection. Charlotte is the only one in the group who is Jewish; Ruby is Catholic, and Lucien later reveals that he lost touch with religion at this point in his life, while Thomas’s religious beliefs are never explored. However, together they transcend organized beliefs in order to appreciate their friendship.

“Charlotte wondered now if Ruby had ever really loved Marcel, or if she’d simply mistaken a desire to escape the mundane and a need to be wanted, for the real thing.”

This moment sharply contrasts Charlotte’s earlier innocent belief in Ruby and Marcel’s love, particularly when she expresses her expectation of Marcel’s delight in Ruby’s pregnancy. This new perspective is more mature and nuanced, showing how much she’s grown. It also alludes to Ruby’s growth from an excited young girl caught up in a whirlwind romance to a woman discovering real love.

“The poppy fields felt farther away than ever, but he was powerless to change that.”

In this moment of reflection, poppies act as a synecdoche of the life Thomas has planned with Ruby. They represent not only the literal, tangible poppies she told him about, but also the physical home attached to it, the memories he might have made there, and the person he might have made them with. They become a small symbol of a much bigger whole while also reinforcing the importance of poppy symbolism in the novel (See: Symbols & Motifs).

“Some shouted ‘Vive la France!’ and others simply smiled bravely and waved good-bye. All of them seemed to be facing the future with courage. Ruby didn’t know how they did it.”

Courage is a consistent thread throughout the novel, being displayed by different characters in diverse ways. At this moment, Ruby is not sure how others manage to keep up their “courage,” which implies that Ruby herself is feeling less certain of The Impact of Everyday Heroism in this moment.

“But as the days turned into weeks, Ruby began to wonder whether God could hear them at all here or whether all of Germany was somehow a void from which no prayers could escape.”

After her arrest, Ruby begins to sink into despair. She does, however, continue to hide her pregnancy and endure, which implies that she is still stronger and more capable of surviving than she thinks. Ruby’s religious doubts in this passage contrast with her more confident, faith-based assertions she made when comforting Charlotte earlier in the novel.

“In every place evil dwelled, good could also be found. It was a truth that kept the world moving forward, through all the wars, through all the terrible machinations of mankind.”

Ruby’s friendship with Herr Hartmann helps restore her faith in humanity, which she had lost in the previous quotation. Here, she reflects that although people are capable of inconceivable cruelty, their potential for kindness and healing is even greater. It’s this faith which gives her the strength to move forward.

“No matter what happens, Ruby, remember I am with you, Nadia’s voice echoed in her head. As long as you have Nadia, you have hope.”

Nadia’s name means “hope.” It also becomes the name of Ruby’s unborn daughter, which Ruby carries with her. In this way, the word “Nadia” in this context refers to intangible hope as well as the influence of two beloved people who play a part in Ruby’s journey.

“But things were different in wartime, and although Charlotte was only fifteen, she might as well have been twenty-five. She and Lucien had seen too much, done too much to ever go back to childhood.”

Here, Charlotte comes to the end of her story and reflects on how far she has come. This moment balances loss with the freedom of maturity. Charlotte has been stripped of her innocence and childhood wonder, as well as the protection of her parents; however, she has also gained the freedom to make informed, adult choices, and she embraces her new life with Lucien. For her, this is the culmination of The Experience of Identity and Coming-of-Age.