96 pages • 3 hours read
Monica HesseGirl in the Blue Coat
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
On Thursday morning, Hanneke’s father comments how nice it is to see her “socializing,” and Hanneke reflects on how long it’s been since she had a circle of friends. In her room, she looks over Mirjam’s belongings and finds a note folded in the shape of a star. It is addressed to Elizabeth from Margaret and talks about a crush on a boy, “T.” Hanneke wonders who these girls are and why the note is among Mirjam’s things. Seeing evidence of this close friendship between girls, she reveals Elsbeth’s fate: “Elsbeth isn’t dead. Elsbeth is living twenty minutes away, with a German soldier. She says she loves him” (104).
Chapter 10 Summary
Hanneke talks her way into the Schouwburg Theater and is shocked by the smell of urine, excrement, and “some other indefinable odor” (107). Judith drags her out and introduces her to her cousin, Mina. Both girls have had jobs at the theater, organized by their uncle, a member of the Jewish Council. Mina works at the nursery and invites Hanneke to go with her on a walk with one of the infants. Mina is eager to chat and befriend Hanneke and tells her that Margaret and Elizabeth are Mirjam and her best friend, Amalia. Amalia is not Jewish, but her parents sent her away from the city to Den Haag. The two girls nicknamed themselves after the English princesses. Mina surmises that “T” refers to a popular boy named Tobias. Then, Mina stops the carriage and gives the baby to a blonde woman at the station.
Chapter 11 Summary
Hanneke is shocked that Mina’s “delivery” was a baby and even more shocked to hear that she has placed over 100 Jewish children in adoptive parents’ hands. She also learns that Mina is concealing something illicit in the carriage: a camera that she is using to document the Nazi occupation. Not even Judith knows. When they return to the theater, Judith tells Hanneke that Mirjam has not passed through the theater.
Chapter 12 Summary
Ollie is waiting for Hanneke at her house. She feels awkward about their kiss and is both relieved and annoyed when he “dismisses the incident” (130). They discuss the theater and Ollie identifies the smell that bothered Hanneke: “[I]t smells like death” (133). Alone, Hanneke thinks back to her time with Bas again and reveals, “Bas wouldn’t have joined [the Navy] if he didn’t think it would make me happy” (134). She explicitly blames herself for his death: “Bas was stupid to love me. I only got him killed. It was my fault” (135).
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
These chapters open Hanneke’s eyes to the full horror of Nazi Germany, a step in her character arc toward Personal Transformation During Wartime. As she learns about Mirjam’s best friend, her crush, and her possible fate at the deportation center, she thinks back to her relationships with Elsbeth and Bas and her own culpability in the war. First, Mirjam’s note reminds her of the friendship she lost. Finally, Hanneke reveals to the reader that Elsbeth didn’t die. Rather, she fell in love with a German soldier after Bas’s death. Her collaboration with Nazis is too much for Hanneke to bear after her boyfriend’s loss. This complex emotional entanglement is at the core of the novel’s theme of Conflicts Between Love and Friendship.
As she continues pursuing Mirjam, Hanneke meets Judith’s cousin, Mina, who, despite being young and Jewish, works more actively in the resistance than Hanneke. Her actions reflect two real-life modes of resistance. In passing Jewish babies off to adoptive families, she spares them from being sent to concentration camps. Taking photos to document the war was valuable for both wartime reconnaissance and post-war prosecutions of crimes against humanity. Hanneke is as impressed by Mina’s bravery as she is horrified by the conditions in the theater, where Jewish people await deportation or immediate violence.
As Hanneke contemplates Ollie’s belief that she can contribute to the resistance, she continues to wrestle with her own guilt around Bas’s death. In the Prologue, Bas tells Hanneke that it’s “her fault” he loves her. The full impact of these words and this memory is revealed when Hanneke says that his death is likewise “her fault” and a direct result of their love. She believes that by encouraging her boyfriend to join the navy, she sealed his fate. This is the ignoble part of her that she believes disqualifies her from taking brave action. Hanneke blaming herself for Bas’s death is a motif in the novel that serves two main purposes. First, it helps her make sense out of something senseless. Before the Nazi occupation was a reality, neither Hanneke nor anyone else could predict the horrors that would take place and the terrifying realities to which everyone would be subjected. Blaming herself is a way for Hanneke to subconsciously exert control over the narrative of Bas’s death instead of feeling that, like so many other soldiers, he was a random casualty of violence. Second, Hanneke’s guilt is a coping mechanism that keeps her from confronting the full force of her grief. Remaining angry with herself is easier than feeling the deep loss of loving someone who is gone forever. Her quest to find Mina becomes an attempt at redemption; if she can help save someone, it may partly atone for the death she believes she caused. Mirjam’s letter parallels Bas’s and foreshadows that the truth is not what anyone thinks it is. This foregrounds The Necessity and Danger of Keeping Secrets, which becomes more important as the plot heads toward its climax in the final chapters.
