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Chapter 40
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Night Divided, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom
Family
Secrets, Surveillance, and Suspicion
Individuality vs. Conformity
Hope and Risk
Summary
Analysis
People joining the military are supposed to report for duty first thing in the morning, but since they come from all over East Germany—not just East Berlin—the military accepts arrivals throughout the day. Mama, Gerta, and Fritz hope this will buy Fritz some time before he’s marked missing. Fritz is in a better mood this morning, though Gerta wonders if he’s just pretending—in East Germany, after all, nobody ever appears too happy or too sad. When Mama arrives home from Oma’s, she whispers to Gerta that when she told Oma their plans, Oma only wondered why they’d waited so long.
Fritz is taking a major risk in not reporting for military duty first thing in the morning: it’s already been established that the Stasi keep an especially close eye on the Lowe family due to Papa’s involvement in the revolution. Meanwhile, Oma’s comment about wondering why the family waited so long to escape shows that she, like all other members of the family at this point, recognize personal freedom as a right that’s worth making great sacrifices for. She will miss her daughter and grandchildren, certainly, but she cares too deeply about them to want them to stick around in an oppressive society simply to keep her company.
Themes
After breakfast, Gerta and Fritz walk ahead of Mama to the tunnel, trying their best to act calm. Mama has called in sick to work to cover for her absence when she and the children escape later, so she can’t be seen on the streets during the day, or it’d raise suspicion. When Fritz and Gerta draw near the tunnel, they hear Grenzers nearby. Gerta can’t make out everything the guards say, but she hears the words “water pipes” and “leak” and “West German incompetence.” It’s clear that they’ve noticed the sinking earth—the question is whether they’ll investigate it immediately or whether Gerta and her family will have another day to spare.
The Grenzers’ discussion of “water pipes” and a “leak” and “West German incompetence” is a majorly bad sign. Thus far Fritz and Gerta have gotten lucky—they’ve risked their lives each day they return to the Welcome Building to work on the tunnel, and thus far their risks have paid off. Now, however, it seems their luck is about to run out: the border guards are clearly aware that something suspicious is going on under the Death Strip—even if they don’t yet know exactly what.
Themes
Once the coast is clear, Fritz and Gerta venture into the tunnel. Dominic is underground too, in his and Papa’s tunnel. He tells Fritz and Gerta that he heard the Grenzers talking, too. Papa, meanwhile, is back securing the braces elsewhere in the tunnel—they worked all night, Dominic tells his siblings. Papa thinks they should let the dirt settle for a couple days, but Fritz argues that they don’t have that much time. Once they’re sure that both sides of the tunnel are strong enough, they’ll break through. In the meantime, Fritz announces that he’ll make mortar for the bricks and will need water from the pond. Gerta gets up to fetch it before he even has to ask.
Themes
