Book Thief Themes

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.

Max Vandenburg was able to escape Stuttgart by carrying Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ which highlights Hitler’s hatred for Jewish people. The words in this story enforced the cruelty of human’s, the German’s who succumbed to Hitler’s words became Nazi’s. In this context, it can be seen that words can be used in a negative way, however, Max would later paint over the pages of ‘Mein Kampf’ to write his own story, ‘The Standover Man’ which he would gift to Liesel, “Max had cut out a collection of pages from Mein Kampf and painted them over in white.” This novel was an act of kindness for Liesel who was fascinated by words yet could not buy novels or obtain them legally. Max’s second novel ‘The Word Shaker’ was also gifted to Liesel when he’d left for Dachau, in this he discusses the power of words and how they can be used in a cruel way, “Yes, the Fuhrer, decided that he would rule the world with words….. He watched them grow, until eventually, great forests of words had risen throughout Germany.” Through ‘Mein Kampf’, ‘The Standover Man’ and ‘The Word Shaker’ the reader can understand the power of words on human

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.

Zusak alludes to the many book burnings that took place in Nazi Germany to show what people thought of words, and how powerful they really are. “Nazi’s were gathering fuel… Liesel was witness to men and women knocking on doors, asking people if they had material that they felt should be done away with or destroyed” (Zusak 101). This is when people come knocking on doors, asking for books they deemed ‘un-German’ to burn in a large bonfire that night. Zusak alludes to this event to show how Germany thought of words and what they did to the mind. Zusak uses an allusion to Adolf Hitler himself to show how powerful his words were to the citizens of Germany and how they influenced them. “Without words, the Fuhrer was nothing” (Zusak 521). Here, the narrator Death is speaking about Hitler and that if he never spoke those words he did, if he never rose to power, the world wouldn’t be the way it is. Zusak does this to show words, even when negatively used, can change people and what they do. Zusak uses an allusion to Adolf Hitler’s own novel Mein Kompf to show the Nazi governments drilled words into the citizen’s heads through the book. “In return, he received a used copy of Mein Kompf” (Zusak 128). In this scene, people hand a copy of Mein Kompf to Hans, like they do to all citizens, to attempt bringing him in deeper to

Theme. A lesson in a novel or story that is not directly stated in the book. Between the excerpts Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt and The Street by Ann Petry is a common theme. The theme that desperate times call for desperate measures.

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.

1a. I think she was justified because Liesel was using the families money to make contact with the woman that left her behind.

Associating each color witht the Natzi Flag, Death refers to them as each time the book thief came into visibility. Liesel, her mother, and her brother were traveling to Munich, when suddenly her brother Werner died. Left with no choice, Liesel was forced to be raised by her foster parents; Rosa and Hans. At first, she wasn't too fond of either of them, but as timed passed she adopted a closer relationship to her Papa Hans. Throughout the story, Liesel faces many life altering events, but her and Rosa share one in common-- Hans was drafted into the war.

Over the course of one’s life, it is inevitable to encounter bumps in the road. Some might be small, and some might be big. The response to these “bumps” is the development of individuals all around us. Some difficulties in our life help us realize our true hidden potential, whereas some problems help us understand life as a whole, these make us the people we are today. Living and understanding the disputes symbolises who we are. For instance, in Mark Zusak's book, The Book Thief, the reader gets an understanding of how certain conflicts create attributes in the characters and how it can symbolise an individual. The author manipulates symbolism, and conflicts to develop Liesel from a young powerless child to a woman who represents strength,

Words can influence the mind in many ways that thought may not be able to. They are carefully placed and shared in different ways by each and every individual. Words have powerful impacts and can majorly impact how one may think, feel, or even lead others to feel. Written by Markus Zusak, “The Book Thief” describes a story of an innocent foster girl, Liesel Meminger, who resides in Munich, Germany at one of the most troubling time periods in history, Nazi Germany. A tale narrated by the one and only Death himself, shows the perspective from his point of view, as well as others, describing how Liesel had been seized away from her birth mother at a young age, and put into a foster family. Her new family, the Hubermanns. As she matures and grows into a more critical thinker, understanding and analyzing everything that carefully happens around her. Her foster-father, Hans guides her and teaches her how to read, which little does she know sparks her journey, the art of stealing books. Liesel soon discovers that words aren 't simply lines on a page, they are strong emotions packed into a form that merely is held in her delicate hands. Not only did she hold the pages of emotion, she held a power, a dangerous weapon of words, a weapon of control, and every book that she had stolen was giving her unimaginable power that made her think in ways that she would’ve never thought she could have. As with Nazi propaganda, and a gift that enabled her to broaden her worldview. Liesel evolves

Hitler was a master of words; however, he used them at the detriment of the German and Jewish people. Propaganda was a tool that the Nazi party were well versed in, using it to inflict and spread utter loathing and prejudice against the Jewish people. To commemorate Hitler’s birthday and victory over his enemies, Nazi members were accumulating fuel. Any material which they felt should be done away with, any propaganda from the enemy. “The Germans loved to burn things. Shops, synagogues, Reichstags, houses, personal items, slain people, and of course books” (The Book Thief, Marcus Zuzack, p84). Hitler was having mass book burnings, with books which were sympathetic to Jews or where they were the heroes. By doing this Hitler excited the people and brought them together with one cause: to rid themselves of the Jews. Hitler also hurt people personally, including Liesel. The close bond that she had developed with Max was harshly taken away from her when,

Do you like war? Do you despise war? Have you ever attempted to help someone during a war, probably not though? In The Book Thief, there is a girl named Liesel who were adopted by Hans and Rosa Hubermann and they helped harbor a Jew during WWII. In The Things They Carried, is about a soldier named Jimmy Cross who adores an English major named Martha and then one of the soldiers’ gets shot and assassinated which makes Jimmy forget about Martha and become a better leader. In The Book Thief and The Things They Carried have some similarities and differences and some of them I’ll explain with literary devices. The theme for The Book Thief is death/war/brutality and the theme for The Things They Carried is to focus on what’s more important than yourself.

In “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak, Liesel is living in Germany during WW2, who is living with her adoptive parents and houses a Jew; she also steals books from various places and is adopted by the mayor when her family, as well as her friends, die in a bombing that she survives. Throughout the book the author foreshadows what might happen using the narrator, Death, who explains future parts of the book, for example on page 5 it says “It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors”. The quote ties in with the themes of the book, which are Thievery along with Abandonment and Survivor's Guilt; these themes were chosen for they represent different scenes within the book, Thievery represents Liesel's need to steal books from the Mayor's house,

In history, art has been known as a production of works for emotional power. Art is formed by artists who have a story to share. It is used to express a deep emotion they cannot quite put into words, for example, sorrow or grief. Throughout the novel, Markus Zusak shows people distracting themselves from desperate times of sorrow through art. The use of art in The Book Thief represents creative outlets used as a coping mechanism for each character. The forms of art in the midst of pain are an accordion, a sketchbook, and books. To someone who were to pick up one of these items wouldn’t see much importance but to the main characters, they are what keeps them inspired and hopeful during the catastrophic events caused by Hitler.

There are themes in every piece of fictional literature ever written. A theme is the central idea of a story that is fictional. A theme can be everything from good verse evil to as simple as light and darkness. In any story there may be more than one theme in it. Some stories have numerous central ideas that can be seen in the one. Most people only focus on one while there may be five that are important to understand to understand the story. The Tell-Tale Heart like some has numerous themes that are all important to understanding the story.