Style in text, is the word choice and sentence structure working together to establish meaning. In The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, takes place during World War II. Liesel Meminger, the book thief, loves to read books more than she likes to steal them. Trapped in her foster house on Himmel Street, Liesel uses her words, and the words of her books, to give her power. Through, word symbolism, allegories, and irony, The Book Thief represents the theme; words are powerful.
Markus Zusak utilizes the style of word symbolism to contribute to forming the theme. The Grave Digger’s Handbook, uses word symbolism to represent the theme of the novel. Liesel held The Grave Digger’s Handbook and, “[t]he point is, it didn't really matter what the book was
The Book Thief is set in Germany during World War II. It peruses the life of Liesel Meminger, a young adolescent who, at the dawn of the novel, is given by her blood mother to adoptive parents in Molching who are set to raise and care for her. The book is narrated by Death. Death joins Liesel numerous times throughout her life, and the story loops around these incidents. Very early on in her life, Liesel steals her first book and, with the help of her foster father, she learns to read and discovers a passion for words. She collects a handful of books throughout her life and each play an important role in ...
Literary devices Zusak included in the novel text was personification and metaphor. “The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both its lungs” (Zusak 9). This device is useful because it deepens the feeling of the plane crashing and makes the scene relatable
The Book Thief: A novel taken place in Germany during War World 11. Throughout this novel we meet a girl named Liesel meminger,
’’Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver…..upon seeing those eyes,she understood Hans Hubermann was worth a lot.’’ (Zusak,34) Liesel saw kindness in Hans Hubermanns eyes which made her feels more comfortable with him rather than Rosa Hubermann.
There is no doubt that the presence of dreams and dreaming are prominent in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. The analysis of these dreams reveal that they are extremely important in the role of connecting characters, revealing characters’ traits, and helping emphasize the symbolic power of words.
In The Book Thief, Monkey’s Paw and The Interlopers, imagery is used to further emphasize the author’s belief that fate is set. In The Book Thief, Zusak uses descriptive imagery to emphasize Max’s illness and show how helpless Liesel and the Huberman’s are to stop it. The image of Max’s decline,
The novel The Book Thief written by Markus Zusak, takes place during World War 2 in the town of Molching, Germany. The protagonist, Liesel Meminger, lives with a foster family, the Hubermann's, and has a deep love for literature. However, at the time, books are hard to come by so Liesel is forced to steal books from Nazi book burnings and the Mayor’s library. Liesel’s reading allows her to escape from the trying times of the war to the imaginary worlds of books. However, Liesel as Liesel matures, she discovers that books and words can not only be used for good, but for evil as well. The books that Liesel discovers throughout the novel directly contribute to Liesel’s growth as a human being and come to define her morals for life.
In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, many characters develop an understanding of the power of words which results in many characters being negatively impacted by the theme.
The general setting and time of The Book Thief is roughly from 1939 to 1943. The rough summary of the bulk of the book is about a young girl named Liesel, who she and her mother are on a train, when suddenly her brother Werner dies. They get off immediately at the next stop to bury him. One of the gravediggers had a book in his hand, but he drops it, and Liesel picks it up. Liesel and her mother keep going to Munich, then to a place called Molching. When her parents are sick, Liesel needs to be put with foster parents. She is put with a couple named Hans and Roma. Liesel has nightmares about her brother who died on the train, when she first arrives at the Hubermann’s house and she would wake up screaming. Liesel goes to a school, where she is made study with the younger children because she is behind in her education. Liesel turns ten in February, and is given a doll by the her foster parents. She also gets a uniform, and is enrolled in the Hitler. Her foster mother starts taking Liesel with her when she gets washing from the neighbors in Molching, and when Liesel is old enough she is going to start doing the same thing also.
The two books by Markus Zusak and Paulo Coelho tells the stories of two characters, Liesel Meminger and Santiago, each in their own respective stories. In The Alchemist, Santiago’s story is a much lighter tale with an overall optimistic and adventurous air. He journeys from Spain all the way to Egypt and back before his adventure ends. Zusak’s The Book Thief, sharply contrasts Coelho’s story with the much darker and dangerous world of Nazi Germany.
The Book Thief Short Essay: The Use of Foreshadowing, Irony, and Symbolism in The Book Thief
Everyone is fated to die; the real question is, how and why this phenomenon occurs. Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief, articulates what is already known from the begging, the fact that we will all die. In this book, Zusak makes it clear which characters will perish from the very beginning, but leaves out real mystery for the end, how and why we will die. Foreshadowing is used on many different occasions throughout this novel. During The Book Thief, serving as the narrator, Death performs the literary device of foreshadowing on various distinctive incidents to permit the reader to have just a peak into what the future of the book contains. Also, it ensures that the journey of how a character dies rather then the actual event is far more significant. Death states the end before the begging to exemplify how there is no overcoming fate while the plethora of this foreshadowing adds to the meaning of the work. The message Zusak is portraying through Death’s narrative appears to be the concept that there is no evading Death himself.
Words… without them we wouldn't be able to communicate with each other,express our emotions or voice our opinions. Words are one of the most important and impactful way we communicate with each other and in The Book Thief the importance is felt all throughout the novel whether in a negative, or positive form. An example of both being the anti semitic views openly expressed by the Germans during World War Two or the calming effect that Liesel achieved through reading during an air raid.
Death states that, “I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both” (Zusak 491). This book shows us human doing things that weren’t even imaginable before this point. Many people give into ideas that were lies. But, we also watch a few people go out of their way and sacrifice everything for a man they barely even know. They do everything they can to keep him safe and alive. They work harder, the get another job, and they even steal. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, death examines the ugliness and the beauty of humans.
Literature is rarely, if ever, merely a story that the author is trying to tell. It is imperative that the reader digs deep within the story to accurately analyze and understand the message the author is trying to portray. Authors tend to hide themselves in their stories. The reader can learn about the author through literary elements such as symbolism, diction, and structure. A good example of this is Robert Frost’s poems The Road Not Taken and Nothing Gold can Stay in which he uses ordinary language unlike many other poets that became more experimental (Frost, Robert. “1.”).