The literary nonfiction novel, Code Girls, by Liza Mundy, is about the untold story of women codebreakers during World War II, as their hard work and intelligence contributed to ending the war by decrypting enemies’ messages. A group of female schoolteachers and college students were sent to Washington DC to study America’s enemies’ military codes to save lives and end the war. The novel describes all the challenges, successes, and impacts on WWII the women completed. As women were given more responsibility, jobs, and learning opportunities, it resulted in people underestimating their abilities and potentials to be fulfilled in making contributions to the society’s development. Throughout the novel, many issues are explored like gender inequality, sexism, and women in math. Below are some of my notebook pages and my central idea summative that explain my process as I develop these ideas:
As I started to read the novel, I realized how literary nonfiction novels are quite different from other novels as the author uses a combination of narrative and informational to clearly show the central idea. The novel starts with a huge conflict, the attack at Pearl Harbor, which led to America trying to defeat Japan by figuring out their military codes. The women codebreakers faced many different challenging codes, such as the Purple machine. Through the Purple machine, I learn about some information about how the Purple machine came, such as the Japanese working close with the Nazis and how they deciphered the codes.
As I read further into the book, in lesson 10, I focused on a short excerpt to reread and research about the puzzling parts in the novel. This technique really helps to understand the novel better as I can research about specific parts of the novel, such as the different code machines. Below is a section from chapter 6 that I found interesting and researched about a specific Japanese code machine. For example, my research on the JN-25 lets me further understand how the codes got broken and how they were used since it was a Japanese Navy code machine. This also led to a huge success for America as the JN-25 predicted the Midway attack. Through my research, this code machine proves my central ideas on how women demonstrated their abilities through these codes. They prevented an important attack that gave both the codebreakers and soldiers more confidence to end the war.
To add more to my process, I have identified more topics and connections about my novel like in lesson 7. These topics relate to the society at the time during WWII when there was major gender inequality towards women and how they were able to prove their abilities through the code breaking work. Making connections is a big part as I develop more deep thinking of this novel since its connects different parts of the novel, like the topics and quotes to show. An example would be how the novel is supposed to be in secret as the women codebreakers couldn’t tell anyone their important job that saved the lives of many. This topic is connected to how these women were never celebrated and known for all the work that they did, even though they were an important aspect on saving lives. Below is a chart showing the topics and relating evidence and connections I found in parts of the novel:
After learning about all the different techniques especially making connections, I have collected many quotes that show the topics and issues I have found. I have connected and related these quotes from the notebook page I wrote below with many of the topics and issues, to show deeper thinking on the novel. It helped me understand the society during WWII as women continued to face the sexism towards them and prove their abilities that are just as strong as men. For example, one quote from the notebook page is: “Switchboard operation was believed to be women’s work, and male soldiers refused to do it”(Mundy 212). This quote shows the sexism towards women as people designated the switchboard operation work to women as men could do it but didn’t do because of it was considered as a job for women. This is like how men designated women to stay home and take care of family. At the same time, it showed how women were brave and courageous as they went to record all the calls and connect with the men fighting in the war. Women could finally take a part in the war and prove their abilities.
To end off, I have combined everything I have learnt in this unit, Stranger than Fiction, as I use the connections I have made to point out different topics and issues in the novel. I have found central ideas through the themes and quotes I have collected. As shown, this page is my central idea summative, which is full of connections between old ideas and new ideas. Originally, I only thought that women should get more responsibility because they were underestimated, but after reading the novel and making connections between the quotes, issues, and ideas, I added onto my old idea and realized that women are not only underestimated but they had the ability to do more, especially for the society.
Thank you for reading my post about my progress as I read the novel, Code Girls. If you are interested in history, especially during WWII, I recommend you to try this book!