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The Book Thief By Markus Zusak

705 Words3 Pages

How the setting of Nazi Germany affected The Book Thief
Imagine being in a world where you can’t read or write because it’s illegal and punishment could be imprisonment or even death. The Book Thief is a book about a girl during World War II in Nazi Germany. Her foster parents hide a Jewish man, but this man is forced to leave once attention is drawn to the family. Ultimately the girls' town is bombed, and her foster parents and best friend are killed. The Book Thief employs a vivid and meticulously crafted setting during Nazi Germany, which becomes a character itself, shaping the narrative, emphasizing the power of words, and underscoring the resilience of the human spirit.
Markus Zusak was born on June 23, 1975, in Sydney, Australia. Markus …show more content…

The setting of the concentration camp at Dachau reveals the horrifying reality of the Holocaust and the extent of human suffering (Page 375). Dachau is a concentration camp where they say hard work sets you free, this is where Max has to march towards and the ultimate reason Liesel began to lose hope and create the hopelessness tone due to the setting. The basement of Liesel's house, where she writes her own story, signifies the power of words and storytelling (Page 494). This basement has personification in the way Liesel could feel the basement as a safe place away from everything and just represents isolation and hopelessness. The setting of the final air raid shelters conveys the climax of the story and the ultimate destruction caused by war (Page 528). The importance of the air strike in the setting of this book really is that it ultimately shows the fear and horror that citizens lived with in Nazi Germany. The description of the neighborhood and its houses on Himmel Street portrays a sense of community and the interconnectedness of the residents (p.31.). The neighborhood grew close and gained personification almost as a bee hive, working together to keep people alive as one family between citizens. The setting of Frau Holtzapfel's home, where Liesel reads to her in exchange for food, highlights the desperate conditions faced by many Germans during the war

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