The Use of Foreshadowing, Irony, and Symbolism in The Book Thief

The first major use of symbolism The Book Thief conveys is the use of the gravedigger's handbook to help the reader remember characters and to help the reader more easily

Reflection: The Book Thief contains many important concepts, but three of them play major roles in developing the characters and creating themes. One key concept discusses the power and significance of words. As seen in the novel, words can be used to influence people in negative and positive ways. For example, reading and writing save the lives of Hans, Max, and Liesel in the form of letters, a copy of MKPF, and Liesel’s life story. On the other hand, Hitler uses words to encourage the German people to hunt down and kill Jewish people. This shows how words can kill people and save people’s lives. Another important concept in The Book Thief is that life is unpredictable, and it can’t be meticulously planned out. Fate and chance will make a difference. This is shown when Hans switches seats with Reinhold Zucker in the military vehicle. Neither of them knows that the bus will crash, and the person in that seat will be killed. But fate isn’t tested, so Hans’s life is spared, and Zucker’s life is taken away. The last major concept, and perhaps the most important, is used as the framework for one of the most crucial themes. It is that humanity displays its duality in extreme ways. From Hans risking his life to give a piece of bread to a frail, old man, to Hitler killing six million Jews in cold blood, humans are capable of the amazingly kind and the incredibly

Elie Wiesel has experienced a horrible tragedy. When he repeatedly says over and over “Never shall I forget…” he emphasizes his fear of what he has seen. He drills into the reader how traumatized he is. This creates sympathy and makes the reader feel worse for Mr. Wiesel. Dramatic irony gives the reader an advantage over the characters. This form of irony is where the reader knows something that the characters do not. “(Poor father! Of what then did you die?)” (page 11) During this scene in the book Elie's father has given the news to the other Jews that they are all required to wear the yellow star. His father said “‘ The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…’” (page 11) This is ironic because the star is what killed nearly all of the Jewish people. Hate killed a countless number of innocent people because of their beliefs. This is the dramatic Irony. Everything that Elie Wiesel uses to create his autobiography makes it more that just a page taught

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.

Irony is a useful device for giving stories many unexpected twists and turns. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," irony is used as an effective literary device. Situational irony is used to show the reader that what is expected to happen sometimes doesn't. Dramatic irony is used to clue the reader in on something that is happening that the characters in the story do not know about. Irony is used throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through the use of situational irony and the use of dramatic irony.

Have you ever read a book with so much irony that it knocks your socks off? Irony takes place in all these stories we are talking about. The Merriam-Webster definition of irony is “the use of words to express something other than, and especially the opposite, of the literal meaning.” These stories will keep you wondering what’s going to happen and when you least expect it, irony will come out of no where and surprise the reader. In the short stories, “The Veldt,” “Just Lather, That’s All,” and “The Ransom of Red Chief,” Irony is active throughout the whole story.

The definition of irony is a contrast between two things. One example is verbal irony. It is a contrast between what someone says and what one means, while dramatic irony is a contrast between what the characters know to be true and what the readers know to be true. Many writers use irony in their short stories to prove a dramatic point, or just to develop a story for upcoming use. These short stories by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (140), Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” (183), and Stephen Crane’s “The Blue Hotel” (229), spin a tale of symbolic irony. Each tell a tale paradoxical twists with sublime contradiction where one is led to believe one side of an event, yet it is dragged down a twisted trail of mental sarcasms coupled with death. It is a known fact that many tales of irony require many major events to twist the order they are written in to create a viewpoint that stride away from the main topic or where the author wants the reader to end up.

In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, the author, Flannery O’Conner, includes many instances of foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is used to subtly alert the reader of future events in the story. If a reader pays close enough attention to these subtle cues, one could predict the end of the story. The foreshadowing in this short story alludes to all of the major final events of the story. The first case of foreshadowing occurs in the first paragraph.

Authors use irony in literature in order to give double meanings and make it more interesting to the reader. In the play “ The Death of a Salesman” Arthur Miller uses irony as a strong writing technique in order to express the character's behavior. In “The Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller moments of situational and dramatic irony helps to illustrate the story's theme in which Willy is a man trying yo achieve the American dream, however he have created a world of illusion.

Foreshadowing and symbolism are literary devices that an author uses to add depth to their story. Authors use these literary devices to hint at a coming event, to add meaning, and to keep the reader interested. However, these literary devices can also be hidden throughout stories and used to create an unexpected ending. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” O’Connor carefully crafts the story to ensure that the ending is not predictable. O’Connor begins by foreshadowing to an important turn in the story.

"The Pardoners Tale" is a very interesting story that contains personification involving death and includes irony as the story plays out. It is a story that makes you want to read until the end just to see how it plays out and the way irony becomes used. While you read the story you can notice irony very easily and with death being the main key to the story, it is not hard to miss. Geoffrey Chaucer makes frequent use of personification and irony in his popular story "The Pardoners Tale."

(Technique analysis) In the two short stories, “A good man is hard to find” and “Until Gwen”, the two authors do a fantastic job of creating a world where they are easy for anyone to be go to inside of the story’s environment. They both use the characterization and plot technique. In order to show how the character thinks, says and does, and give the very well order of events in both of the stories. Furthermore, in the “a good man is hard to find”, it use the technique to show the character “grandmother”.

People watch other individuals experience irony all the time. When something is ironic it means that the thing that was to happen, did not happen the way it was thought to happen. Sometimes irony happens to those who least expect it or irony happens to everyone. There have been songs, television ads, and stories written about irony or that have included ironic events or details. One piece of literature that contains a lot of irony is Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”. Crane uses irony in many different ways in the story to tell of four individuals who survive their ship being wrecked and everyone else aboard has drown.

1. Title : The Book Thief 2. Author: Markus Zusak 3. Date of Original Publication:2005 4.

Markus Zusak uses setting and perspective to express theme in his novel, The Book Thief. Zusak uses setting and perspective to express theme by showing books being burned because they went against Adolf Hitler’s political views, Hans joining NSDAP, and Max having to stay in the basement because he was a Jewish man and Jews were not allowed to live in Germany. The Book Thief follows a young girl named Liesel who is stripped away from her mother and given to her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Throughout her stay with the Hubermann’s she steals many books from book burnings and the Mayor’s library. This becomes a major point of conflict between her character and Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Markus Zusak uses setting and perspective to express theme in The Book Thief by having the story take place in Nazi Germany, a place that frequently suppressed points of view.