Book Thief Foreshadowing

The Book Thief is a historical fiction novel by Markus Zusak set in Munich, Germany during the Nazi reign from 1936-1943. The novel incorporates a main character that is, in the beginning, an innocent child who doesn't understand the world and takes her on a journey where she grows up and matures through the hardships and challenges of her life. The story is narrated by the character Death, who is a fresh take on the Grim Reaper, only wearing the black cloak when it's cold and never carries a syte. Death describes the life Liesel Meminger, an orphaned girl who witnesses her brother's death and burial and finds herself being adopted by the benevolent old couple, the Hubermanns. The rest of the story follows Liesel's journey through her incredibly challenging life with the Hubermanns and characters such as Rudy, The mayor's wife, and Max helping her along. Symbolism in The Book Thief deepens the story by conveying many different ideas and emotions that supports the reader's understanding of the story. This is especially apparent with the use of the gravediggers to help the reader remember characters, the use of color to help the reader feel the proper emotions and remember the correct events, and the use of Liesel's changing feelings about Rudy to convey how Liesel grows and matures through the book.

When writing a book authors like to use colors and symbols to describe and help make the story. In most books color is used a lot in the story to describe things from the sky to people's clothes. The Book Thief use color theory very often. Color Theory says that people will judge a character on the environment and what colors are in the environment(“Color Theory“). We are told the color of the sky when the main narrator Death is doing his job. He does not like his job so he uses colors to distract him from taking people's souls. Death says that he looks at the sky when he is doing his job, "I do try to enjoy every color I see - the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress," (Zusak 4). The color of the sky when someone dies had a lot of meaning behind the color. In the Book Thief, the colors are red, blue, black show up in the book the most.

The Book Thief is set in the time of World War 2 where the Holocaust is present and disaster is everywhere. Throughout the story, Liesel, the main character, learns that words are extremely powerful and hold the ability for people to use them for good or for evil. Among the disaster and altercations, Liesel uses her literature to comfort her and make herself more powerful due to her knowledge, which demonstrates the theme of the story, the comfort and power of literature and words softens the pain of loss.

The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger’s life during World War 2 told through the eyes of Death himself. All three writers portray Death as a character who has interactions with those that have or are about to die. However, unlike Zusak’s Death, Collins’ is a malicious puppeteer and Dickinson’s Death is presented as someone who is at peace with what he must do.

The Book Thief Short Essay: The Use of Foreshadowing, Irony, and Symbolism in The Book Thief

After reading and scrutinizing The Book Thief, one can see that bread, the accordion, and books, the three main symbols used in the novel, are indispensable to the merriment of the book. To add information, these three symbols all represent different things, actions, and people, but can all be compared and contrasted. Three different ways that these emblems can be compared and contrasted is by looking at what they represent, why they represent it, and the reasoning behind why the author used that specific symbol.

In the beginning of The Book Thief, the reader meets Liesel Meminger, her mother, and her brother, Werner Meminger. The father is never introduced. It is only said that he is a communist. Werner dies on the train to Himmel Street, the place that Liesel is left with a couple, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel’s mother is never seen again, but the reader assumes that she was taken away for being one of the Nazi’s targets. According to The Book Thief, “What came to her then was the dustiness of the floor, the feeling that her clothes were more next to her than on her, and the sudden realization that this would all be for nothing—that her mother would never write back and she would never see her again.” Nazis were the epitome of evil. They tore families apart and killed millions of innocent people.

The Book Thief is narrated by the personification of death, a witty and humorous fellow who takes an interest in the life of a young Liesel Meminger. In the beginning death gives the reader a small wakeup call "Here is a small fact, you are going to die" (Zusack 3). Before saying anything more than a metaphor with colors, death says something that everyone knows and quite avidly avoids. The fact that everyone dies is quite relevant in the book, it serves as one of many examples of forshadowing that are spread through the book. True to his words, just about everyone does die in the end, with Liesel, Max and Mr.Stiener being the exceptions. " I am not violent. I am no malicious. I am a result" (Zusack 8) death establishes who he is, and what he thinks of himself quite early on. This quote, as well as the one above are both examples of the times in witch death hands out a bit of his own thoughts to the reader. (these thoughts often contain information that is relevant or just

Life during the 1940’s was hard for the entire world. As Germany caused suffering and loss in multiple other countries, the people of Germany suffered as well. The Book Thief follows the story of a German girl named Liesel, who was forced to be taken away from her family at a young age. She then becomes the foster daughter of Rosa and Hans Hubermann, whose children have grown up and left. Liesel struggles to understand why her mother had left her, and why Hitler was causing all of the bad things in her life to happen. In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak uses the theme of loss to show how it can bring people closer together.

To begin with, Max travels to Molching and “in front of him, he read from the copy of Mein Kampf. His saviour.” (Zusak 157) Max, the jew, reads from the book, Mein Kampf, written by Hitler who loaths the jewish race. The use of diction such as “his saviour” presents the reader with the meaning of hope. The book written by a bigotry and is now saving the man who is being degraded, gives Max hope that yes, he can survive and get to Molching by pretending to be German. Mein Kampf is used by Max as a distraction to others as he hopes he can safely arrive at his destination with no one finding out he is really a jew. The foreshadowing of the book burning and Liesel’s second act of book thievery admits “Liesel was not ashamed to have stolen it… it

“The Führer [Hitler] decided that he would rule the world with words. ‘I will never fire a gun,’ he devised. ‘I will not have to.’…” (Zusak 445) this excerpt comes from “The Word Shaker,” a short story written by Max Vandenburg in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The quote suggests that a plebian would effortlessly be able to use words rather than guns or other tools to take over the world, as Hitler actually did in the Holocaust. “The Word Shaker,” is just one of many paragons that demonstrate that words are very potent and are shown in The Book Thief through various actions of the characters.

3. The Book Thief offers a unique characterization of Death by making him appear as someone who does not enjoy his job. He describes himself as having a tough boss at his shoulder, hissing “Get it done, get it done.” He is constantly trying to avoid becoming emotionally attached to any of the people he has to work with and around, particularly the survivors, and has to distract himself by focusing on

Markus Zusak’s Novel The Book Thief is about a little girl whose brother died and is given to a foster family during around the time of the Holocaust/persecution of Jews. Throughout The Book Thief symbolism is shown through many objects to signify there importance and impact on the character(s). In The Book Thief symbolism is shown through many objects such as The Accordion and books that Liesel reads.

In the novel “The Book Thief ” by Markus Zusak, a young girl named Liesel is forced to move in with a foster family living in Germany during the holocaust. Over the years, she establishes bonds with many different people, as well as struggling against the cruel leadership of Hitler. This includes feeding jews, keeping secrets, and as the name suggests, stealing books. Her foster family is very poor, and it is evident that the few possessions they own serve as important symbols. Symbolism plays a huge role in this book. Meals, cigarettes, books, and a variety of other things. However, one of the most important symbols that seems to surface again and again is Han’s accordion.

In human nature, people tend to stay true to their core values they grew up with through their childhood and will not change them even when being influenced by others. Throughout Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, the author utilizes the symbolism of Liesel Meminger’s relationship with objects and the decisions she makes, to emphasis Liesel’s loyalty to her core values. Across the book, we can see how she retains her core values of peace and power through her symbolic relationship with books, words and bread.