“You are going to die” (3). The narrator of “The Book Thief” confesses to the reader. “I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away” (4). This is how death explains the day you will finally meet him. The narrator known more as Death, tells the story of a little girl in Molching, Germany named Liesel and her life growing up during the Holocaust and World War ll. Throughout the novel, colors are seen by Death to distract him from his grueling job as he carries the souls away from their bodies. As time passes on, Death soon meets Liesel and many of her loved ones, including her brother, her best friend, and her mama and papa, each with different colors painting the sky. Are you little disturb yet? If hearing that the narrator is Death himself wasn't bad enough, he also explains how you two will …show more content…
soon meet face to face. Now before you get any more freaked out then you already are, you should know a little bit more about Death and his job. If you picture Death as your typical grime reaper with a scythe and black coat, then think again. Death states that if you really want to know what he looks like, you should “find yourself a mirror…” (307). By this he means that we are going to die. Death is invitable so we will all soon become it. Death essentially makes us all human and is one of the many things that we will all experience in are our lifetime. What makes death so remarkable and an outstanding narrator is his ability show emotion. Although Death is no where close to being human, he shows human like emotions throughout the entire book. We see joy, sorrow, and even depression. Death explains that his job never gets easier and the worst part is there is no one to take his place. No where for him to get away from such a demanding job. The only thing that keeps Death from not breaking down emotional is the distraction of colors. As death explains, “My one saving grace is distraction. It keeps me sane. It helps me cope…” (4). Now that Death is describe a little better, we will begin with the first of many colors to be painted by Death. A color described as blinding, perfect for distraction. The very first color death sees in Liesel’s story is white. The snow blanketed the earth with a blinding kind of white.
For those you think white is not a color, Death explains it is most definitely a color and he would know. Death comes for the soul of Liesel’s younger brother during the cold winter months, hints the blinding white blanket of snow. The soul of the small boy was the first to be taken in Liesel's life and the color white was the first one on display in Death’s painful job. As Death begins to recollect Liesel, he sees many colors but three stand out the most. “They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red” (14). Red, White, and Black. The three colors of Liesel Meminger. The three colors of a book thief. Many devastating events included gas chambers full of Jews and the result of war left Death exhaustion and broken. Although Death carries many souls away, none could compare to the souls of Rudy Steiner and Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Death explains the night Himmel Street was bombed “The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was
burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness” (12). Death takes each soul gently while watching the contexts. All the memories that made them who they are. Next in line to meet Death was Rudy Steiner. As death watches Rudy’s soul, he proclaims “He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry” (531). “The hot sky was red and turning. Pepper streaks were starting to swirl…” (533). Last in line were the Hubermann’s. The soul of Hans Hubermann met Death sitting up. “Those kinds of souls always do—the best ones” (531). His soul was lifted with the taste of summer champaign and the breath of an accordion. Rosa Hubermann’s soul was lifted with her “papery pink lips…still in the act of moving” (532). Some would think the soul of a Saukerl-calling women like Rosa would have little to no soul but Death can guarantee and there was a soul and it was much bigger the some thought. It was the soul of a book giver and a Jew feeder. “The Book Thief” is an outstanding story of a young girl and her life growing up during a tragic time in Germany. Death plays a huge role in the book not as just the narrator but as part of the story. Death relies on colors to distract him from the painful job of carrying souls away from there bodies. As Death holds the souls in his arms, reminiscences of their life flash though air while colors brush on the sky like a blank canvas. With each soul taken by Death, a color is painted in the sky. Lastly, here are few questions to ask yourself. Something to ponder on. With all the many colors that are on display for death’s distraction, What color will everything be in the moment when Death comes for you? What memories will flood the sky while he gently lifts your soul from your lifeless body? “What will the sky be saying”(4)?
Throughout the novel Liesel reaches new highs and new lows, overcoming her fears and succumbing to her anger. Liesel's sudden outburst at Ilsa Hermann after Ilsa asking to stop the laundry services caused her to finally accept her brother's death and even helped Ilsa accept her son's death as well. Ilsa's guilt consumed her and caused her to become a house ridden woman overcome by her grief while Liesel overcame her guilt and grief by learning how to read and write not allowing them to overcome her. "“It’s about time,” she [Liesel] informed her, “that you do your own stinking washing anyway. It’s about time you faced the fact that your son is dead. He got killed! He got strangled and cut up more than twenty years ago! Or did he freeze to death? Either way, he’s dead! He’s dead and it’s pathetic that you sit here shivering in your own house to suffer for it. You think you’re the only one?” Immediately. Her brother was next to her. He whispered for her to stop, but he, too, was dead, and not worth listening to. He died in a train. They buried him in the snow. […] “This book,” she went on. She shoved the boy down the steps, making him fall. “I don’t want it.” The words were quieter now, but still just as hot. She threw The Whistler at the woman’s slippered feet, hearing the clack of it as it landed on the cement. “I don’t want your miserable book. ”[…] her brother holding his
I have very good sight. One moment they were white, the next red, the next blue. Then I got it. They were a woman’s dresses”. At first, I did not pay attention to the colors of the dresses, but then I realized the pattern of colors in order. In this case, I believe white represents light, goodness, and pureness. The red represents anger, blood and possibly murder. The last but not least, the color blue that represents wisdom, loyalty, and truth. It seemed to me that the author used colors symbolizes the story from the beginning to the end. I believe it is a hint for us to what to expect and what not to since Jeffries was right all along the
Ethan Frome contains three main characters that parallel those of traditional fairy tales. Firstly, Zeena represents the witch, or evil stepmother. Everything about her re...
After a few moments, he settles and reflects, “I thought about him, fog on the lake, insects chirring eerily, and felt the tug of fear, felt the darkness opening up inside me like a set of jaws. Who was he, I wondered, this victim of time and circumstance bobbing sorrowfully in the lake at my back” (193). The narrator can almost envision himself as the man whose corpse is before him. Both deceased from mysterious causes, involved in shady activities, and left to rot in the stagnant lake water, and never to be discovered by the outside world. This marks the point where the main character is the closest he has ever been to death.
’’Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver…..upon seeing those eyes,she understood Hans Hubermann was worth a lot.’’ (Zusak,34) Liesel saw kindness in Hans Hubermanns eyes which made her feels more comfortable with him rather than Rosa Hubermann.
On September 1st, 1939 Germany invaded Poland, which started World War II in Europe. The war between Germany and the Soviet Union was one of the deadliest and largest wars of all mankind. It caused an overall change in Jewish people’s lives because they lost family members, homes, and the reason to live. There was a political shift in climate during that time because of the mass genocide it caused. Germany went from a place where people lived to a huge European power that singled out one race.
The Holocaust was a horrible time for everyone involved, but for the Jews it was the worst. The Jews no longer had names they became numbers. Also they would fight and the S.S. would watch and enjoy. They lost all personal items, then forced to look and dress the same. This was an extremely painful and agonizing process to dehumanize the Jews. Which made it easier to take control of the Jews and get rid of them.
Toni saw this opportunity to write this particular article into a novel to show people how the days of slavery were and the sacrifices those that had run away would make if they stood a chance to be recaptured. The novel also introduces us to the spirits of the souls that were lost and how they never rested in peace until they finished what they had left behind. Toni really captures the audience’s attention in this particular novel.
Death is a very well-known figure that is feared by many in all countries. He is suspected of being cruel, disturbing and all synonyms of horrifying. Death is inevitable and that is the most fearing aspect of his persona. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Death is made to seem or resemble humans. Effectively using the narration role, Death introduces a unique description and definition of colors in which he uses as a tool to effectively engage the readers to the events occurring throughout the book. He also demonstrates him personal and different experiences as well, mostly about soul gathering and the implications of WWII that have affected him. On the contrary to Death’s dead, appalling and scary nature that many interpret him to be during the book, Death shows many emotions and features to his personality that reasoning would declare otherwise. One of those feature would be the colors.
Crane's use of color allows for layers of meaning within each hue. Green, red and gray are used to describe the everyday physical objects in the text's world, and also the landscapes and metaphysical objects and ideas in Fleming's mind. Green is literally the color of the grass, but figuratively the freshness and youth of the soldiers and the purity of the natural world. Red is, overwhelmingly the color of battle, of courage and gunfire and bloodshed. Gray, however, becomes the color of human defeat. Because Crane uses each so carefully and selectively, creating for each several meanings, they take on a significance of their own; each can stand alone to have its own charged meanings.
To begin with the holocaust had a great impact in history even though it was a time of disaster, murder, and discrimination. It was a time in which Adolf Hitler,German politician and Nazi party leader, wanted all Jews suffering or dead. Adolf Hitler turned everyone against the Jews because he believed that they were to wealthy and too powerful so he wanted to eliminate all of them. The Jews went through a lot of suffering and pain. The German soldiers which took commands from their leader, Adolf Hitler, put some Jews to work and killed others. Many Jews didn't get to work they were killed instantly. All women were separated from the man and woman were mostly killed instantly only some got the opportunity to work. The some ways that the jews were killed is that they were put into gas chambers by tons or shot by soldiers. Jews were also dying by starvation dehydration soldiers would not give them enough food or water. They would only want those with blue eyes and blonde hair they discriminated all the others. Soldiers would not only kill the Jews but torture them for anything they did. The Jews would be transported from camp to camp walking even in the worst weather conditions which also many died from it.
The Jews were used as scapegoats by the Germans. They were treated terribly and lived in very poor conditions. Many of the Jewish children were put into homes,ther...
He begins to think how he had just killed a man and how him and his friends had tried to attempt rapping a girl. As he is walking in the lake he touches a dead body and gets freaked out even more and began to yell. Then the girl hears him and scream there they are and began to throw rocks into the lake trying to hit the narrator. He then hears the voice of Bobby who bought him relief and sorrow at the same time. He felt relief because he discovers that the Bobby is not dead and sorrow because the Bobby was alive and wanted to kill him and his friends.
The Holocaust was one of the most tragic and trying times for the Jewish people. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and other minorities that the Nazis considered undesirable were detained in concentration camps, death camps, or labor camps. There, they were forced to work and live in the harshest of conditions, starved, and brutally murdered. Horrific things went on in Auschwitz and Majdenek during the Holocaust that wiped out approximately 1,378,000 people combined. “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” –Fidel Castro
The Holocaust represents 11 million lives that abruptly ended, the extermination of people not for who they were but for what they were. Groups such as handicaps, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, political dissidents and others were persecuted by the Nazis because of their religious/political beliefs, physical defects, or failure to fall into the Aryan ideal. The Holocaust was lead by a man named Adolf Hitler who was born in 1889, and died in 1945.