Objectifying The Book Thief By Zusak

Objectifying The Book Thief In The Book Thief, to represent the setting of Nazi Germany during World War II, a miniature gun was selected in order to show the war and bloodshed created by those weapons. The story goes through Liesel Meminger’s life from the ages of 10-14, narrated by Death. During those few years, World War II was occurring and countless people were dying until there were too many to keep track of. Death once said in his diary that “the souls and bodies don’t add up; they multiply” (Zusak 308). In his perspective, he explains that there are masses of people dying every day at an extremely increasing rate. Death plays a major role in showing how extensive the numbers were throughout the battles. The years of 1939-1945 were years

The apple illustrates Liesel, the main character of The Book Thief’s nature of thievery, by representing the beginning of her theft for food rather than just books. Like the title of the book, Liesel proudly carries the name “Book Thief” but books aren’t the only thing she steals. With the influence of her best friend, Rudy, Liesel was led into more theft, but now it involves food rather than books. Rudy comes from a big family who can’t afford to feed everyone fully, while Liesel’s foster parents were poor. No access to money nor healthy amounts of food led the two into the need of stealing food. They had joined a group of fruit stealers and after their first heist, the leader “gave Liesel and Rudy a dozen apples between them” (Zusak 153). Before they returned home, they had both “consumed six apples apiece within half an hour” (Zusak 153). Their ability to eat all of those apples at such a speed exemplifies their hunger and why they needed to steal them, making the two continue their

Rudy is recognized as a wild kid, one who does things on his own whenever he chooses and won’t stop until he gets what he sets his mind to. He has a history of being inspired by a black track runner named Jesse Owens who symbolizes the idea of determination by winning gold medals in the Olympics, when nobody believed he could. There was a time when Rudy was running four events at the Hitler Youth carnival. He had been able to win three races, gaining three gold medals himself, but was disqualified for false starting in the fourth. In between these three races, Liesel would continuously ask Rudy if he was tired and he would always reply with “‘I’m not tired’” (Zusak 363). Although he kept telling her this, she knew he was tired, but his fatigue wouldn’t stop him from stepping to the starting line. Rudy was able to overcome his exhaustion, race after race, and the three that he had won showed his true strength. This connects to how Jesse Owens didn’t allow people’s beliefs about him to affect his ability to win his own events. Rudy will continue to demonstrate his might and challenge the obstacles that come into his life despite what others assume, and the medal is a representation of that perseverance. The Book Thief portrays a theme of the power of words, the usage of letter grams to represent it is due to the fact that