Irony In The Book Thief Death

Death is a highly feared concept. It is viewed as the end, in many cases, bringing great sadness to those who have lost a loved one. The idea of death comes with images of pain and suffering, sickness and disaster, war and conflict. This causes death to be seen as the enemy. People try their best to escape the reality of death. However, humans are not immortal so at some point death does come. When this happens, death is blamed for all of the pain the family and friends feel due to the loss of a loved one. Death has a bad reputation because it is at the saddest and most awful moments in life and in history that death is most prevalent. In The Book Thief, death is viewed in a different manner. Through his use of irony, Markus Zusak redefines

Zusak’s use of foreshadowing is another sign of death’s sympathy, this time to the reader. Death seems to care about the reader. Instead of releasing all of the shock at once, death prepares the reader for what is to come. This can be seen when death says, “Preemptively, you conclude, as I would, that Rudy died that very same day, of hypothermia. He did not. Recollections like those merely remind me that he was not deserving of the fate that met him a little under two years later” (Zusak 242). While telling about Rudy rushing into the river to save Liesel’s book, death brings up the fact that while this occasion did not kill Rudy, he will die just a few years later. This is another piece of irony on Zusak’s part. Normally, people are not able to anticipate death, but in this case death tells the reader that Rudy will die. This is another example of death’s sympathy. It does not want the reader to be crushed by the news of Rudy death all at once, so it provides the information before so the reader can have time to process the news. In addition to death’s sympathy toward the dying, it also shows care toward people who were genuinely good people in the world. When death refers to Hans’s death and later to Liesel’s death this concept is evident. When describing the taking of Hans’s soul death says, “He was tall in bed and I could see the silver through his eyelids. His soul sat

While humans blame war, sickness, and disasters as the cause for suffering, death realizes that humans cause pain and death on their own. Death realizes that the pain and suffering that occurred during the holocaust was because of humans. Humans create their own horror and death must clean up the aftermath. This seems to confuse and scare death. Death concludes its story by saying, “I am haunted by humans” (Zusak 550). I think this is one of the most eye opening statements in the book. It is ironic because most humans spend their life in fear of death, but death reveals that it is afraid of humans. Death seems to be saying that it is haunted by what humans are capable of, in terms of hatred and violence. Humans have the ability to build up one another, but at the same time, they can tear one another down and destroy all that is good in the world. Death is forced to see the pain, suffering, and destruction in the world each day as it picks up the souls that died as a result. This could be the reason death is so beaten down and reluctant to do its job, because it does not like to see all of the suffering humans bring upon themselves. It could also be the reason death has such an interest in Liesel’s story. Death says, “There was much work to be done, and with a collection of other materials, The Book Thief was stepped on several times and eventually picked up