The Different Perspectives of Annemarie in the Book Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

It is information or in other words, data, that enables the ability of a human being to make predictions amongst others as well as assumptions of what another being may appear to be in reality without social interaction, but no information has the same impact. Throughout Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Annemarie is a protagonist who does only settle on the reliability of others to destin her own predictions on what a presumed adult may appear to be as an individual, but relies on two perspectives.

Although, Annemarie settles strongly on her own beliefs, these descriptions of adults are often perceived through information that is handed down to her to even a combination of information and lack of information, as well as just settling on the lack of information that only makes the story a bit more well-rounded when it comes to introducing a child’s perspective when someone or something valuable is ought to be taken away by someone.

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To start with, Annemarie is often seen commenting on all adults before generally introducing herself to the adult which is seen in the beginning of the book when she claims that the two guards around the corner are mindless and obnoxious without generally meeting them. Another form of interpreting these misjudgements is through the environment Annemarie is raised in which in other words, plays an important factor with her lifestyle as well as herself-being. As Number the Stars progresses, much of Annemarie’s forms of viewing adults changes with the amount of information she pertains from the adults surrounding her.

For example, “Papa,”Annemarie had said, finally, into the silence, “sometimes I wonder why the king wasn’t able to protect us. Why didn’t he fight the Nazis so that they wouldn’t come into Denmark with their guns?” (pg. 28) As seen through the following passage, Annemarie is given information on the economic crisis due to the Nazis (Germans) invading countries and taking over individuals, causing Annemarie to not only perceive the diseastrous event as a form of pure dark, but the Nazis as well. From this negative information handed down to her, she is able to understand the Through the information that she is provided with, she allows herself to make judgements of the German adults fighting for the Nazis by analyzing the information given to her through a negative eye. Subsequently, Annemarie does not only realize the structure of her judgements from the information given to her, but begins to come up with her own combination of judgements that either resonate on factual information or the lack of information. As a result of these justifications made by Annemarie, she did not only settle on judgements based on factual information that others introduced to her, but she essentially decided to come up with her own based on factual as well as non factual information. Going back to the beginning of the book, there are pieces of text that contain contradictory information.

For example, throughout the beginning of the story, it seems as if Annemarie overlooks the appearance of the guards as seen in the following, “One of the soldiers, the taller one, moved toward her. Annemarie recognized him as the one shot and Ellen always called, in whispers, “the Giraffe”because of his height and the long neck that extended from his stiff collar.” ( pg. 16) Through this passage, Annemarie shares an overall perspective on the guard in a rather humorous matter because of the lack of information she gathered, but this point of view instantaneously changes in the following excerpts. In addition to this chapter, Annemarie’s point of view on the two guards changes, ” Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything. It was the two soldiers who stand on the corner of Osterbrogade you’ve seen them; you know the tall one with the long neck, the one who looks like silly giraffe?’She Told her mother and Mrs. Rosen of the incident, trying to make it sound humorous and unimportant. But their uneasy looks didn’t change.” (pg. 20) Rapidly, Annemarie’s judgement on the guards changes as she does not only see them as matters of humour, but as individuals with the power to kill surrounded by a negative atmosphere. As seen through these two passages, there’s a major gap between the judgments Annemarie comments through the lack of information and when she is hit with information which allows the reader like me to understand the combinations of perspective and text that the Lois Lowry uses to provided a childlike perspective and a child’s indecisive manner.

Overall, Annemarie does seem to settle on combinations of perspective (lack of information and information) from which one is able to analyze the environment of children at the time, but like all individuals in the book, she does not only settle on a combination of both perspectives, but sometimes settle on only one perspective. It seems as if the lack of information is the most common method of judgement for Annemarie, possibly because of the human capacity to judge something or someone new beforehand. From this consistent human tactic, Annemarie is often seen judging individuals by relying on her own opinions without backing up her ideas with information. For example, “The Hirsch family lived in the neighborhood, so they had seen the boy, Samuel, often. He wasa tallteenager with thick glasses, stooped shoulders,and unruly hair. He rode a bicycle to school, leaning forward and squinting, wrinkling his nose to nudge his glasses into place” (pg. 34) It seems as if Annemarie predicted that Samuel’s parents were busy or incapacitated to continue living in Copenhagen because she claimed that they were possibly on a “vacation,” without evaluating the information that was left on the door of their business. Annemarie in other words interprets this “vacation” that Samuel’s parents supposedly took as being a form of resignation/irresponsibility. Overall, Annemarie tends to process these unresourceful judgements of adults through personal experience with her own sister Lisa and her death as well as the personal environment she lacks as a young individual, creating these unreliable judgements.

Moreover, in Number the Stars by: Lois Lowry, it is transparent that Annemarie is a young female individual that is restricted from the environment she should be exposed to, but lacks this freedom which overall affects her judgements of adults based on two perspectives (positive or negative. Annemarie’s perspectives differentiate into three categories, being that she either relies on factual information about certain adults, a combination of information and the lack of information, or simply by relying on the lack of information needed to understand herself in times of pitch black death. Nonetheless, Annemarie grows up with a different perspective when it comes to the common human judgement which does not only change her life on a daily basis, but the book’s entire plot as well as the inner conflict; making the book different in perspective at all times.