Book Thief Theme

The Book Thief Essay

Markus Zusak is the author of The Book Thief and it’s theme that Markus Zusak tries to convey to the reader is “ the power of words”. He shows how words can affect people’s lives in a positive and negative way. He used the characters to interpret and develop the theme of this book. By analyzing what the text conveys about the power of words, The reader can tell that Markus Zusak develops the theme of this novel by, how does power manifest itself in the novel, and who possesses power and how they acquire power through words and language not only positively but also negatively.

One of these characters that Markus Zusak uses to interpret and develop the theme of this book is Liesel Meminger. Liesel is a little girl

He uses a short story that Max made for Liesel called The Word Shaker. In The Word Shaker it talks about a “strange small man” ( Zusak, ) who would rule the country without having to shoot a gun, he would use words to rule. So he plants seeds and grows a forest of trees. The strange small man represents Hitler, the seeds represent the words and propaganda he used to manipulate people’s thoughts and feelings, and the forest of trees represent Germany and the results of his words and propaganda. The trees represent the emotions and feeling of the people that believed in the propaganda and words that Hitler was serving. But there was also a little girl who was also a word shaker and she had a seed too. She meets a man and became friends with him. But when he grew ill she cried on that seed and it grew into the biggest tree of the forest. The little girl represents Liesel, the man represents Max, and the little girl crying on the seed represents Liesel crying for Max when he got sick. The big tree represents her compassion and kind heart. Then, Hitler gets mad and orders ax men to cut it down but nobody could until one ax-man came and dug nails inside the tree and went up to stayed with the girl. Then he takes her down and the tree falls, crushing most of the forest. The ax men represent Hitler’s Nazi’s, the one ax-man represents Max, and the act of letting the tree fall to destroy most of the forest represents Liesel “releasing” her power and fights with words of compassion and kindness which defeats hatred and arrogance. This short story is really direct and wants to show the reader that words do have power, it reflects the theme by talking about how Hitler used and planted hateful words in people’s minds. But it also shows the reader how Liesel used comforting and positive words to abolish the hateful words that Hitler