Major Themes Evident In The Book Thief

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.

“The Book Thief” is a novel and film about a girl who survives death during WW2 and how words became very important to her life. Liesel Meminger was brought to her foster home unable to read. Her foster father, Hans, finds out she can’t read and helps teaches her German. Liesel then falls in love with words and uses them to write her story.The theme “power of words” is displayed in the novel and film equally. Three ways the power of words were shown was by making an emotional connection with the audience, influencing people to do something, and creating unlikely friendships.

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.

“Words can light fires in the minds of men” (Patrick Rothfuss). Author, Markus Zusak, in his novel The Book Thief, narrates as Death to show the story of Liesel Meminger, a girl living in World War Two Nazi Germany. Zusak uses literary devices to depict a theme of how words can change the world in order to show their effect on people.

Words are everywhere, words make up books, and the power of words make The Book Thief which will never be able to be improved upon. Words help us communicate with others, but mainly they have positive and negative sides to them. In the novel, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Death narrates the story while Liesel Meminger also tells her story of living in Nazi, Germany. We will discuss how there are many people such as Max Vandenburg and Liesel Meminger who choose to use to use their power of words in the positive way. We will also discuss how people also like to use their power of words in the negative way such as Adolf Hitler. The power of words are very effective especially in Markus Zusak’s writing, and we’ll discuss the main parts of the book which have been effected with the power of words.

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.

Themes are inserted within literature by the author in an attempt to provoke readers to think about the topic provided. In the novel, The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak, many topics are presents, such as, courage, suffering, and human behavior. The most prevalent, however, is the courage possessed by certain individuals. This theme, bravery, is evident throughout the entire course of the novel in Liesel Meminger, the Hubermanns, and Max Vandenburg.

“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.

Markus Zusak, in his novel The Book Thief, set in 1939 Nazi Germany, raises many ideas, one of which is the power of words. Through various techniques including characterisation, personification, and similes, Zusak conveys messages about the power of words such as their intent, their ability to form bonds between people, and their importance as vessels of language. Many times, throughout The Book Thief, Zusak describes words as if they were living things, which gives them personality and shows us that words can have intent separate to that of the speaker. Through clever personification he gives personality and traits to words, and helps describe the feelings of characters, such as Hans’ “visible” hangover that “heaved itself to his shoulders and sat there like a bag of wet cement.”

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.

Words are more influential than thought. Words can have such a powerful impact on how you interpret things, how you feel, and how you can make others feel as well. The word choice used in The Book Thief demonstrates many themes throughout such as death, friendship, guilt, reason, and the struggle between ones inner self and the society in which he is surrounded. As complex as this may sound, the method was used in a simplistic fashion to construct the meaning and details of certain situations through the senses that ultimately capture how the characters take in the world around them. The power of words in the novel The Book Thief is used to control individuals and gain power if rooted from bad intentions; however, the power of words also

A captivating and beautifully well written narrative; "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak follows the adolescence of a courageous young girl named Liesel Meminger, whose book thievery opens her to a world of words. This novel discusses themes of identity and belonging, and the characters struggle to finding these as the novel progresses; though set in a different time period, the struggle Liesel endures greatly imitates the struggle of adolescents today. The story's beginning made me feel somewhat perplexed as to who the narrator was and for quite some time, I desperately wanted him or her to reveal their identity; However Zusak seems to enjoy keeping his readers guessing, which I find the mystery of his writing to be quite admiring. The imagery, narration and perspectives on this detrimental time in our World’s history obliged me continue reading on Liesels journey.

“The subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a person's thoughts, or an exhibition; a topic.” Is Google’s definition for theme, as many know coming up with themes can be a great hastle. So I begun to create a list of possible themes for these three stories, “The Sound of Thunder”, Holes, and The Book Thief. One of the first themes, of the three, is the dangers of time travel, for the story: “The Sound of Thunder”.

If you believe in yourself and have dedication, pride, and never quit, you will be successful. Markus Zusak, the author of The Book Thief, creates a story of a young orphan named Liesel Meminger, who is living with her new foster family. She learns the wonders of reading from her foster father and grows to love books. During Liesel’s time with her new family, she shows determination through her efforts and kindness with her encounters with other people. Liesel in The Book Thief expresses her traits, such as hardworking, and bravery.