Do you think the three women would have been friends if not for the war? While the war brought these women into each other's lives, do you think it's ultimately what bound them together, or were there other factors?
Created: 02/10/18
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I do not. They had three distinct personalities, backgrounds and ideals. I do not think under normal circumstances that their paths would have led them to each other nor do I think they would have forged any meaningful friendships with one another.
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Their lives became entwined because of Marianne's search for them as a result of her promise to her husband and Connie to be "commander of wives and children." But I am not sure that they were really friends, but more like a family bound together to survive the aftermath of the war. Marianne often treated Benita as if she were a child while she nursed her back to health. Benita even called her cruel. Ania and Marianne did rely on each other as family members tend to do but I felt their relationship lacked the fondness of friendship.
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I'm not sure they were friends even though thrown together by the war. Although they did provide company and help for one another, I don't think they liked each other very much. If not for the war, there's no way they would have formed even the limited friendship they experienced. Marianne and Benita might have had contact because of Marianne's relationship with Connie, but I think the relationship would have been one of tolerance rather than friendship.
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I think it's possible that Benita and Ania may have become friends - not before the war but during and after as they both had children that were displaced and experienced physical and financial hardships that Marianne didn't have. I think they were both more forgiving about situations that occurred during the war than Marianne that would have created a bond between them. Both had relationships with men who got caught up in the Nazi party and both did things during the war that haunted them over the years. Marianne was steadfast from the beginning and had a hard time relating to situations that forced Benita and Ania to act in ways they later regretted.
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I do agree with Debbie, that possibly Ania and Benita could have had a friendship. However, each woman came from such different backgrounds that it seems unlikely. Part IV of the novel gave more insight into the possibility of friendship between the women, based on them being in the Castle.
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I agree with all of the above! I do have one comment about the three. When I read the publisher's description of the book on the back,it made it seem as though there would be more than three women in the story. I pictured a large home filled with women, like a college dormitory! So, I was a little disappointed that it was reduced to three. In the scene at the party in the beginning when the men are sequestered in a room talking, I got the impression that there were several men, and so I guess I assumed Marianne would have her hands full with all the women! I understand that that would have made for a HUGE book, but still! I would have written the jacket copy differently -- "to find and protect as many of their wives as she could find." or something like that. I felt a little led on!
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A.T., I had the same expectation that there would be more women than just the three of them. I don't think any of them would have even crossed paths with each other if it hadn't been for the war. Actually, the only reason they met and even came together at all was because of the promise Marianne made, to find and protect the wives and children of the resisters. Then it turns out, Ania wasn't even who they thought she was, not a wife of a resister, but a Nazi. It seems the relationship between these women wasn't really friendship, but more of a reluctant connection forced by necessity to survive, and, for Marianne, a promise.
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No. They were from different social classes and would have had little opportunity to interact in ways that would forge friendships. Marianne looked down on Benita from the beginning and could never understand why Connie married her. That kind of condescension does make for a friendship. Marianne was too rigid and judgmental to form close friendships, I feel. It’s ironic that she’s says of her daughter, Elizabeth, that she was so judgmental. The apple didn’t fall from the tree there.
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