How does one write a book about the horrors of the holocaust and portray the German society as much a victim as the others? Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief published in the year 2005 does exactly that, weaving a story in its 552-paged glory and opening a window into the life of the little Liesel Meminger. However, that’s not it. It’s just the tip of the iceberg that The Book Thief really is. What makes The Book Thief truly a different book to come by is not its concept but its narrator. He says he can be agreeable, affable and amiable and that that’s just the A’s. What he says he definitely isn’t- is nice because quiet correctly Death never is nice. Yes, The Book Thief is narrated by the wry, often sardonic and darkly humorous but secretly compassionate, Death.
The book starts off with an introduction by our unconventional narrator in which he, in all his truthfulness, unknowingly chills the reader to his bones in just the third sentence of the first page.You Are Going To Die.However, he realises his folly soon thereafter and apologises, even chiding himself for the lack of manners on his part. But he never does end up introducing himself even then and brushes off such things as unnecessary, telling his readers that they’d meet him soon enough, shocking them yet again. It’s as if he can’t help being intimidating and painfully direct and truthful and is oblivious to the subtleties and niceties of the human world. His one true pastime is watching colours—all sorts of them, especially that of the sky—because it helps him relax and takes his mind off the pressing nature of his job. His job much to the amusement of the readers, he says, is taxing to the point that it drives him insane. He even shares that he’s in desperate need of a ho...
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...internationally and has often been called ‘Harry Potter and the Holocaust’, a young girl’s difficult yet determined journey towards maturity. However, there are some who argue that a book so sad and sentimental is hardly a suitable read for teenagers. In Zusak’s own country, the book was published for a more mature audience and I think it does require a grown-up head to interpret the complicated emotions portrayed in here. Still, reading it can be a life-changing experience for this book comes with a message of hope. Liesel is the embodiment of that hope, a personification of love and generosity that even Death comes to love and respect. Read The Book Thief for it’s a lesson for life and food for thought for our generation. Read it for it shows one how to hope, and above all, read it for Death, the narrator with a heart, who confesses that he is haunted by humans.
Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief depicts the life of a certain young German girl named Liesel Meminger during World War II. Her story was told through the eyes of Death, who narrates both the blessings and devastation that occurred during that era. Liesel experiences living with her new foster parents and come across a boy named Rudy Steider who will later on become her best friend. As the story unfolds, Liesel gradually discovers the horrifying truth behind the Nazi regime as her foster parents take refuge of a Jewish man. Despite being in the midst of destruction and recently coping from her traumatic background, she undertakes on a journey of self-discovery and
In Markus Zusak’s novel, the book thief, Liesel Meminger is surrounded by death and fear as that is the norm in the 1930’s. Liesel is a strong young girl who has been deeply affected by her brother’s death and her mother leaving her and finds comfort in ‘The Grave Digger’s Handbook’, the book she stole at the site of her brother’s burial. Throughout the novel Liesel finds comfort in other books and reads them to escape the terrible reality that is Nazi Germany. Together with books she overcomes obstacles she wouldn't have been able to do without them
In The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak tells the tragic story of Liesel Meminger and her experiences in 1939 Nazi Germany. Zuzak incorporates compelling literary devices such as toe curling foreshadowing, personification, and vivid imagery in the form of simile and metaphors to grasp the readers’ interest. Zusak’s use of various literary devices helps to deepen the text and morals of the story, and makes the dramatic historical novel nearly impossible to put down.
In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak the narrator is Death, who shows itself as sympathetic and sensitive towards the suffering of the world and the cruel human nature, through its eyes, we can get to know the heartbreaking story of Liesel Meminger an ordinary, but very lucky nine-year old German girl; living in the midst of World War II in Germany. In this book the author provides a different insight and observation about humanity during this time period from a German view and not an Allied perspective, as we are used to.
In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger, an orphaned little girl living in Nazi Germany, evolves partly through her numerous literary thefts. At her younger brother’s gravesite, she steals her first book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, which teaches her not only the method to physically bury her brother, but also lets her emotionally bury him and move on. The theft of her next book, The Shoulder Shrug, from a book burning marks the start of Liesel’s awareness and resistance to the Nazi regime. As a story with a Jewish protagonist “who [is] tired of letting life pass him by – what he refer[s] to as the shrugging of the shoulders to the problems and pleasures of a person’s time on earth,” this novel prepares her both for resisting the
In the novel the book thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel states, “as long as both she and Rudy lived she would never kiss that miserable, filthy Saukerl (Zusak, 55). Liesel Memiger, the protagonist in the novel, is the foster daughter of Hans and Rosa Huberman. When Liesel first arrives at Himmel Street, a boy with hair the color of lemons walks her to school for her first day, she does not like him at first, but little does she know he will become her best friend (Zusak, 25-34). This is ironic because Liesel never does kiss Rudy until after he is dead. Rudy Steiner is Liesel’s best friend he has hair the color of lemons `and is adventurous and courageous. He wants Liesel to kiss him throughout the whole book but she never does until he is dead. In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Death gives clear examples from Liesel and Rudy’s different points of view on their relationship and we can see how it changes throughout the story.
The heavily proclaimed novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is a great story that can help you understand what living in Nazi Germany was like. Throughout the story, the main character, Liesel goes through many hardships to cope with a new life in a new town and to come to the recognition of what the Nazi party is. Liesel was given up for adoption after her mother gave her away to a new family, who seemed harsh at first, but ended up being the people who taught her all the things she needed to know. Life with the new family didn’t start off good, but the came to love them and her new friend, Rudy. As the book carried along, it was revealed that the Hubermanns were not Nazi supporters, and even took in a Jew and hid him in their basement later on in the book. Liesel became great friends with the Jew living in her basement, Max, who shared many similarities which helped form their relationship. Both of
The Holocaust is marked as one of the most horrifying events of the 20th century.The person who was responsible for the Holocaust was Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party. The question is, how, and why was Hitler able to do this? The actual truth behind all this is that, Hitler could make the world his, just by using words. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, it tells a story about a young girl growing up when Nazi Germany was invincible. The author explores some very meaningful, yet, controversial themes for the most part of the novel. Out of all themes, he believes that words hold a remarkable power. He explores how words manipulate, divide, and connect people.
In the novel The Book Thief, setting and point of view affect the theme and book a lot. The point of view of this novel is third person omniscient and a little bit of second and first person when the narrator talks about himself or to the reader. The setting of the story is Nazi Germany and it is based on a young girl named Liesel Meminger and what her life was like during this time. Her story is told by the narrator, death. Mark Zusak, the author, uses setting and point of view to express the theme of the novel because there was so much death happening, Liesel encountered him so many times, causing him to be able to tell her story; without this setting and the narrator, the theme story would have been different.
German citizens had to endure a challenging lifestyle, presented by Adolf Hitler, of fascism, the holocaust, Jewish laws and propaganda during World War II. From 1939-1942, Nazi Germany affected the lives of Jews, Gypsies, Slavic people, and other groups living in Germany by getting rid of the undesirables, known as the Holocaust. Only Germans with the look of blond hair and blue eyes were even considered to live, only if he or she had no defects or disabilities, anyone else was sent to and killed in concentration camps. The Book Thief takes place in a town near Munich, Germany during this time of the holocaust. The novel focuses on the lives of the people and how they cope and deal with the immediate effects of WWII. It emphasizes the danger of hiding a Jew in a family’s basement, and how they are constantly paranoid of being caught.
Liesel is still at an age where she doesn’t know the full effect that her actions have on herself and her family. She becomes fascinated with books, and maybe even more so with the thrill that comes with stealing them. Liesel is told many times that it is dangerous and if she were caught there could be awful consequences, but Liesel does not care because all she wants is one more new book. The mayor’s wife, Ilsa, becomes someone whom Liesel can share books with even though the mayor’s wife is distant most of the time, allowing Liesel to read the books in quiet.... ... middle of paper ...
Death states that, “I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both” (Zusak 491). This book shows us human doing things that weren’t even imaginable before this point. Many people give into ideas that were lies. But, we also watch a few people go out of their way and sacrifice everything for a man they barely even know. They do everything they can to keep him safe and alive. They work harder, the get another job, and they even steal. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, death examines the ugliness and the beauty of humans.
In The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, beauty and brutality is seen in many of the characters. Rudy, Liesel, and Rosa display examples of beauty and brutality often without realizing what exactly they are doing, because it is a part of their human nature. Zusak not only uses his characters, but also the setting of the novel in Nazi Germany to allude to his theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature. The time in which the novel is set, during World War II, displays great examples of beauty and brutality, such as the mistreatment of the Jews. As a result of this time period, the characters have to go through troubling times, which reveals their beautiful and brutal nature in certain circumstances. Zusak uses his characters and their experiences to demonstrate the theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature in the novel.
In the epilogue of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the story has come to an end as we learn the destiny of the book thief. Death, the narrator, says, “Liesel Meminger lived to a very old age, far away from Molching and the demise of Himmel Street. She died in a suburb of Sydney. The house number was forty-five—the same as the Fielders’ shelter—and the sky was the best blue of afternoon. Like her papa, her soul was sitting up. In her final visions, she saw her three children, her grandchildren, her husband, and the long list of lives that merged with hers. Among them, lit like lanterns, were Hans and Rosa Hubermann, her brother, and the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever” (397). Liesel, the “perpetual survivor” and so full of
The dark side of human nature has always been very apparent in our lives. Just turn on the news or open a history textbook. One of the darkest stains of human history, the Holocaust, illustrates a particular lack of humanity. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak explores the unpredicted kindness human nature through a young German girl who discovers the power of words.