Analysis Of ' The Book Thief '

Relationship to meaning: - Death, as the narrator, gives us an insight into the events surrounding Liesel that otherwise would not have been known. Also Death explains definitions, events, and other items of note.

Through all of the irony and vivid coloring, The Book Thief is more easily understood after acquiring knowledge of reading literature with greater care and meticulousness. Applying chapters of How to Read Literature like a Professor can better enhance a reader’s awareness of hidden messages and symbols within certain works of literature. In Chapter Two, Foster explains how meals suggest a communion between all parties involved in it. Markus Zusak also uses meals and food to bring families together in The Book Thief. Foster also explains, in Chapter Eleven, how violence in literature usually stands for more than just violence.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, takes place in 1940s Nazi Germany in the small town of Molching. The main character, Liesel Meminger, takes on a role as the foster child of Hans and Rosa Hubermann. She also meets a young boy named Rudy Steiner, who goes on to be her best friend and lover. In the book, Liesel faces many challenges big and small. From hiding a Jew in the basement to a thieving lifestyle, Liesel has to learn to overcome all of life's problems. Through all of this, she is supported by her foster father Hans Hubermann who is caring to people he barely knows, intelligence despite his lack of education, and generosity even when he has little for himself.

One of the main characteristics of war is its ability to take away individuals’ feelings of strength. Such individuals will become unable to feel a sense of identity unless they find some source of power, no matter its form may be. The main characters in The Book Thief and Between Shades of Gray use art and literature as a means for empowering themselves within the conflict-ridden setting around them: World War II. The “testimony [of these characters is produced] to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where [their] voices have been extinguished” (Sepetys 338). Liesel, the main character in The Book Thief, and Lina, from Between Shades of Gray, create testimony of their endurances by leaving behind writing and drawings that tell their story to future generations after being forced into silence during their own lifetime.

In The Book Thief, a work of historical fiction, written by Markus Zusak introduces the main character Liesel Meminger, the reader starts to see how she keeps having many conflicts but always stays positive. Liesel has many conflicts, for example her brother dies early in the book and that shapes the way she is. Later on Liesel steals books and that makes her happy because the first book she stole was the grave digger's handbook and that is how she remembers her brother. Liesel steals and reads books this is how she finds happiness with all the bad things going on around her. In the end of the book most of the people she loves die and it is hard for her to find happiness again. The author uses the setting and point of view to express theme and to make the reader feel sympathy; He uses this because with the theme of finding light in the darkness, deaths perception, and the setting of Germany makes the theme clearer.

Liesel is kind-hearted because in The Book Thief she said, “ I don’t want to lose someone else”. She said this to Max after they became close friends. Given that, she is kind-hearted one can tell that she would do anything to protect her family from death. After WWII max and Liesel reunite and they hug and cry until they fell to the floor. Where Liesel use to live in 33 Himmel Street before there was a raid that destroyed the whole street, they hide Max. Her best friend is Rudy Steiner, he is a neighbor at first but then the friendship grows after each mischievous thing they do together. With Rudy, she grows and steals books for fun. Rudy might think it is fun, but to Liesel, it means for her. Like I said, she does this in memory of her brother. They have a race and it is a draw after falling. Rudy then said to Liesel, “If it’s a draw, do I still get my kiss?” Liesel then says, “ Not in a million years” and Rudy at the end he says “One day, Liesel, you’ll be dying to kiss me”. Therefore, at the end of the book and middle, she desires to kiss him but doesn’t until the end where he is dead. Later on, her family and she hide a Jew, Max Vandenburg, from the Nazis. Max and Liesel have grown close together. Liesel is competitive, compassionate,

In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, words can be very powerful. Words can either break a person down or build them up. There are several examples in this story where words either bring people together or tear them apart. While words prove to both heal and hurt in this story, the healing words leave a longer and lasting mark on the person that is being healed, while the damaging ones do less to hurt than the comforting ones do to help.

Books can sate, motivate, and inspire a reader without standing the test of time. There are a multitude of books released today that can change a reader’s life without making their mark on history. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief is a prime example of this. Most critics agree that The Book Thief is a quality read, but there is no telling whether it will last throughout the ages of literature. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a novel that has lasted since its release in the nineteenth century, and critics continue to praise it. Jane Eyre shares similarities to The Book Thief; however, The Book Thief will not stand the test of time because of its lack of completely original themes and ideas.

This can be shown with: “In her final visions, she saw her three children, her grandchildren, her husband, and the long list of lives that merged with hers. Among them, lit like lanterns, were Hans and Rosa Hubermann, her brother and the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever” (Zusak 544). At the end of the book, Liesel dies, and death can see her final visions. She eventually moved on, but even though she moved on, she never forgot her parents or Rudy. Liesel struggles with the challenges of losing family and friends and loving yet hating words, but copes with both.

A poet named Rumi once said that “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom”(Rumi). In Markus Zusak The Book Thief, the theme that even though people are surrounded by hatred, compassion from others can transform the hatred into love is shown when Hans protects Max and hides in the basement, and Ilsa Hermann’s sharing of the books in the library, and when rudy jumped in the river for Liesel's book. In this novel, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, a girl named Liesel overcome the powerful dictatorship of hitler, through her papa’s help, and many friends. The Hubermann household helps with many of the Jews persecuted by Hitler. The Hubermann family gets through the hardest times together.

Death plays a significant role in this book. Death introduces itself has the narrator of this book. Death meets Liesel for the first time on the train when he pick up her brother’s  soul, after the fighter pilot crashes his plane, and then again at the bombing of Himmel Street. Death has three main colors that it associates Liesel with. The colors are white, which is a rectangle, red, which is a circle, and black, which is a swastika. These colors represent the Nazi flag which was created by Adolf Hitler. Death is also infatuated with Liesel and he never forgets about

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak takes place during World War II. The narrator of the book doesn’t give a name, though he gives clues about who he is and he turns out to be death. The narrator is death. His job was to carry souls of humans away when their time has come. When he first encountered the book thief, it had been when her brother had died. It was winter, January 1939. Liesel Meminger, her mother and her brother, Werner, were on a train leaving Munich, Germany to Molching to move in with her foster parents, Rosa, and Hans Huberman. Of course as you know, her brother had not made it. As they held a small funeral in a near town, the guy who dug up the grave had dropped a handbook in the snow. The Grave Digger’s Handbook the title read.

Exposition - Death introduces himself and describes the instance when young Liesel Meminger saw her dead brother in her mother’s arms. Following this event, Liesel is sent to live with her foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann.

Finally, a similarity and difference which both The Book thief and The Things They Carried share is conflict. As accordingly, Rudy and Tim both want, “to stop a Hitler or some comparable evil” (42) which revolves around Tim mostly. Rudy on the other hand, wants, “to kill the Fuhrer!” (426). Even though Rudy wants to kill Hitler as much as Tim wants to stop some sort of comparable Hitler, both books share a similarity as to oppose Hitler or evil. A difference in conflict between the two books both have to deal against different problems throughout the books. Jimmy was a terrible leader and blamed himself for one of the soldiers deaths and Ted (the dead soldier) who, “was shot in the head on his way back from peeing.” (12) which was how Ted

This inspires Han’s to start teaching Liesel how to read and write. Once she knows how to write, she starts writing letters to her mother. All of them go unanswered and we find out that Liesel’s mother has mysteriously disappeared. On April 20th, 1940 a book burning was held in honor of Adolf Hitler’s birthday and on that day Liesel stole yet another book: The Shoulder Shrug. The mayor’s wife Ilsa Hermann saw her doing this and later invites Liesel to read in her library. She also begins to suspect that Hitler had something to do with her father’s disappearance because a Nazi spokesperson had proclaimed death to Jews and communists during the book burning. The one thing that Liesel knew about her father was that he was accused of being a communist. Hans confirms this and Liesel swears Hitler will be her enemy for life. Hans tells Liesel to keep her anti-Hitler feelings to herself because they are in Nazi-Germany where Hitler is at his strongest. We soon find out that Hans was saved in World War I by a Jewish man named Erik