Personification In The Book Thief

In The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak communicates an over-arching topic. This topic is; all objects convey dark tones. The idea is transmitted into the writing subtly throughout the excerpt, as well as the story.

Zusak shares this message in this excerpt in many ways, one of which is personification. Zusak can be noticed using personification when talking about the plane, “The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both it’s lungs... No more flapping,” stated the Grim Reaper, “Not for this metallic little bird”(Zusak). This shows how Zusak successfully conveyed a very dark tone through an inanimate object, a plane, by personifying it and making people feel sympathy for it. Zusak does not just use personification, he also uses techniques

like metaphors. When the Grim Reaper compares a human’s death to an eclipse is an example of Zusak using a metaphor, “I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies... I’ve seen more eclipses than i care to remember”(Zusak). Zusak writes this to show how the worst part of a human’s life is when they die, its the darkest moment before the light. This example really shows how Zusak created a darker idea surrounding the eclipse, conveying a darker tone. These quotes show how Zusak creates deeper meaning through language.