Sarah's Key

While reading Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay I paid close attention to not only the tone of her writing but the varying degree of seperation between the two protagonists. Sarah's Key is composed of two interweaving storylines: Sarah, in the past and Julia's quest in the present day. The structure of the novel in the first chapter of Sarah's Key Sarah, an eleven year old Jewish girl, describes the tragic day when her family was taken to the Velodrome d'Hiver on July 16th, 1942 and further sent to a concentration camp in France. In the second chapter, however, there is a total shift in character and mood, instead of hearing more about Sarah and her troubles the reader is introduced to a new character altogether, Julia Jaramond an American reporter living in Paris. This reporter has just been told by her director to write an article on the events that took place at the Velodrome d'Hiver, in the midst of her research Julia comes across Sarah's story and how they are connected through their Parisian apartment. After a constant back and fourth between setting and characters Sarah's perspective is completely removed from the chapters starting on page 167, and taken over by Julia alone. At this point, Julia takes on Sarah's story on her own and searches for the ending herself. This twist adds connectedness to the novel along with the additional mystery.