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The role of death in the book thief
The role of death in the book thief
Book thief themes
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He was always kind and he and Liesel formed a friendship and they would read together. He made her a book about his story and left the book for her after he left. All of these characters impacted Liesel in their own way and showed theme of take nothing for granted by the characters giving something to Liesel and she took them for granted until they were gone and she realized her mistake. Death narrated this story and the reader got to see his point of view of The Book Thief and understand how he sees the world and humans. This takes place in Nazi Germany, 1939 during WW II.
The book, “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak, is not only written about the mass murder of millions of Jews, in addition, the book is from the perspective of no other than death itself. It displays what death feels with every soul he takes, seeing what goes through his mind with the job that is forced upon him. In the book, death ends the novel with “I am haunted by humans” (Zusak 550), the theme this quote allows the reader to infer is “there is a different side to every story”. Just like all of humanity, death did not ask to be here. There is a side to every story and death’s is that he is simply doing the task he was created to do.
The power of words in “The Book Thief” and the endless strength they carry is a prime topic throughout the book. “The Book Thief”, a novel narrated by Death about Liesel, a young German girl who is given up for adoption to live with the Hubermann’s shortly before World War II. Liesel discovers the power that words, written or spoken, have to transform people, relationships, and lives. In the novel, Mark Zusak uses the relationship between characters to signify the power of words. Within “The Book Thief” the author suggests that words hold much power and have a major role in crafting the relationships between the characters.
Death plays a bigger role in life than life itself. When people die, people cry, and while people cry, a clear moment of lucidity occurs. Death is what makes every moment worth living and is told through stories of books and movies with symbols both subtle and blunt. Night, for example, is an autobiographical novel recalling Eliezer’s experience through concentration camps while The Book Thief is a historical fiction film where Liesel is a bystander who participates in activities symbolizing war. History is intertwined death.
‘That [Death] in a way was a metaphor for the idea that this book is about people doing beautiful things in a really ugly time.’ (Zusak, 2010) One of the central themes presented in The Book Thief is the idea of family. It is evident in the text that the idea of a family is not just limited to those in which we are inherently connected; it encompasses those we care for. Her arrival on Himmel Street, leaves Liesel struggling to face the abandonment she has experienced with her mother leaving her for a reason she does not understand and the devastating loss of her brother, Werner, whose ghost haunts her throughout the novel.
Advertisements in today’s society is everything. Companies have their own way of advertising or some type of moto. Families are a huge platform in advertising. Rather it be from social media, photos, or commercials all of these play a role in advertising with the content and idea of family. Lots of the time society looks at advertisements and think it’s just a typical ad that contains family content.
A natural human instinct is to do anything in order to survive. Though a person may not necessarily want to survive, the physical body of a person does. The body naturally will try to do anything in order to protect itself and survive even when the person does not notice. Survival comes at a cost that not all people are willing to pay. To survive there are struggles and obstacles that not all are willing to face, but to get through these obstacles an individual is one step closer to survival.
Markus Zusak has assembled ‘The Book Thief’ using a variety of narrative conventions. These include a unique narrative viewpoint, plot structure and use of imagery, all of which provide meaning to the reader. (33 words) A narrative’s point of view refers to who is telling the story. In this case Zusak’s narrator identifies himself as Death.
The Grave Digger’s Handbook is the first book Liesel steals. Why does she take the
Death states that he sees the ugliness and beauty in people which can refer to many different characters throughout the movie The Book Thief. Many characters change with the events that are going on in Germany, especially their levels of ugliness and beauty. There are many different characters in which we see the ugliness and beauty which goes to high extents. The first example of a character who has both ugliness and beauty in him is Hans Hubermann.
Most people say that blood runs thicker than water, but in this book that is not the case. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, family is shown in an extremely unique way. Generally, when people imagine the average model family, they see a family that has money, a family that is prim and proper and usually, a family that is biologically related. Though, family in this book is based on shared hardships and having faith in each other, not by blood relation. Hans and Liesel’s relationship is a great example of trust.
To Heal and to Hurt: The Importance of Words in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak “Words do two major things. They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.” This quote by Jim Rohn highlights the two major things words do, indicating they have a power, an important role in everyday lives. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is an outstanding representation of many topics including the most crucial one, the importance of words. It is the late 1930s to early 1940s in Germany during the World War II, and the main character, Death, cannot help himself but to be intrigued by Liesel Meminger’s story, a girl that lives in Munich, Germany on Himmel Street.
The characters in a story. They are hard to bring to life, yet a story would be incomplete without them. I love to write, and I often don’t have troubles creating my characters. But what makes every character stand out is that special thing about each and every one of them. That’s one thing that I loved about “The Book Thief,” by Markus Zusak.
Life is not always beautiful, that is a fact. It is a fact that every human being has come to realize. Another fact that we all know but cease to accept is that life is brutal, that is another fact, except that, it is a fact no one wanted to accept until that one turning point in a person’s journey in which they realize that there is not always a way out. In “The Book Thief”, the protagonist, Liesel Meminger comes to realize that in life, there is beauty and brutality, sometimes both combined together with a fine line between them. The author, Zusak, uses three out of the five senses-vision, hearing and the ability to feel, both physically and emotionally as imagery to communicate the ideas of beauty and brutality to the reader and enforce
The Book Thief revolves around Hans and Rosa Hubermann, Rudy Steiner, Max Vandenburg, and the infamous ten-year-old book thief, Liesel Meminger. The setting is Himmel Street, Germany during World War II and the narrator is Death, who busily runs to and fro taking souls and stumbles upon the Book Thief’s very own handwritten book. Though Death might not be the narrator someone would think fit to be point of view for the book, he manages to catch and describe the beauty and destruction of war whilst telling the stories of the people living on Himmel Street. Along with Markus Zusak’s captivating writing, he will tell an unforgettable story set during the Holocaust from the views of a Jew on the run and four Germans while a war wages on. Whereas other authors would prefer writing from the victim’s perspective during the war, Markus Zusak gives insight on the Germans that had no choice but to grudgingly obey throughout Hitler’s rule.