How Does Liesel Use Words In The Book Thief

The Importance of Words in the Book Thief

The plot of The Book Thief if heavily influenced by words. Used by persons like Hitler, words are what turns a country like Germany into a horrible dictatorship. In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, words are important because they are more powerful than just pure force alone and can be used to convey emotions. In this novel words are used mainly in three ways. Firstly words are important because of the influence that they have and the impact they make when used for harm. Secondly they can be used to comfort and help a person for the better. Lastly they can be used to convey emotions and meanings. Through these three ways words are used to change the course of the novel.

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From things like planting the seed of justice to other things like trying to make a difference in the corrupt society, Liesel uses words to make a difference. The first way words are seen as good is when Liesel is described by Max in his story as planting the seed of innocence which is an acronym for how Liesel and sees that prosecuting the Jewish is wrong. This shows how innocent people like Liesel can learn to use words to make a change and also shows the power of words in the way she also convinces people like her friend Rudy. We know that Max feels this way because in his story the word shaker where he states, “She was renowned as the best word shakers of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be without words,” (Zusak 446). This shows the importance of words and that of good words because it describes how a person is powerless without words or in Maxes case not an opinion. This leads Liesel to notice the prejudice against the Jewish allowing for the reader to see the importance of good words in the novel. The second way that the importance of words in their goodness is seen when Liesel gets her last book from Ilsa. When Ilsa Hermann gives Liesel this last book the pages are empty and she tells Liesel that she should write her own book. This is justified when Ilsa says, “I thought if you do [not] want to read any more books, you might like to write one instead,” (Zusak 523). The significance of this quote is that Ilsa tells Liesel that if the words are all being used for bad and or Liesel disagrees with them, she should make her own words, writing her own book. This is important when it comes to using words for good because this is the point where Liesel is able to spread the seed of good in the form of not ignoring the prejudice in her society. Words are lastly used for good in the way that when Alex Steiner comes back from his ‘recruitment’