The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Landscapes in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society reflect the effects of WWII. Be it London, Guernsey, or Normandy, both the urban and natural landscapes of these locations bear the scars of the conflict. While London’s destruction compels the reader to consider the bleak aftermath of the war’s bombing campaigns, it also signifies both the resistance and survival of Londoners. The choice to remain in the city, face the Blitz, and refuse to capitulate to the German army is one that conveys the strength of British resistance. For all that London is in tatters, in other words, the city did not fall, and that is a victory in itself.

In Guernsey, Shaffer and Barrows describe a landscape that has been cruelly reshaped to exemplify the isolation and exploitation that the islanders and the workers who were forced to come to Guernsey suffered. As Amelia explains to Juliet, the fortifications that defile the island’s seaside embody the German army’s exploitive system:

Hitler was a fanatic about fortifying these islands—[…] his generals called it Island Madness. […] The coastal fortifications were absurd—the Channel Isles were better fortified than the Atlantic Wall built against an Allied invasion. […] The Third Reich was to last one thousand years—in concrete. So, of course, he needed thousands of slave workers (115).

In this passage, the authors suggest that by forcing thousands into enslavement, the fortifications built from their blood, sweat, and lives are a monument to the workers’ complete isolation from their communities as much as to the dehumanizing practices employed by Hitler and his army. It is a practice that is also seen in Normandy’s natural landscape, wherein what little has not been stripped away from the forests is made useful to fend off the Allies, weaponizing nature and making the landscape of a record death and violence.