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

In the novel, The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak illustrates the theme that words have the potential to be more harmful than physical violence, if used in the wrong way.

The Book Thief, written by Australian novelist Markus Zusak, follows a young girl living in Nazi Germany, and employs innovative techniques to convey the central idea of the extremes of human behavior. This central idea was explored through stylistic techniques and conventions such as Death as the narrator, juxtaposition, irony, lack of chronological order, narrative voices, and themes, namely the power of words.

Hope is elusive and one needs courage to ensure it does not fly away. In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak develops the theme of courage and hope throughout the novel, showing people need both to survive. He portrays the theme effectively through the characterization of Liesel as well as the symbolism of Hans Hubermann’s accordion.

The theme of the novel, The Book Thief written by Markus Zusak is that there is great power in word and it makes a huge impact on others. As Liesel begin to learn to read, she realize she hungers for words and that they are her source of comfort which is why she steals books. Soon she realize that can be an ugly thing. For example, the way Hitler use words to encourage the Germans to carry out cruel, violence on innocent people. I chose this theme because I agree on how words can influence people around you. Also how words cannot only be ….but can be a weapon. My favorite quote that supports this theme very well is “I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right” (Zusak 528). This just says that it’s your choice

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.

Authors may use this item to tell the story with different items and by using symbolism many

Ambiguity is a concept I came across while reading The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak. The novel discussed numerous paradoxes of the human experience, and thus stimulated my mind into exploring branches of philosophy previously unknown to me. Though the concept is a simple one, the source of ambiguity is much more complicated. From my reading of this story and study in a psychology class, I learned that one’s natural instinct and nurturing environment is what affects one’s perspective. Equally important, no matter how similar common the human condition is, everyone is different. No person has the same life experiences, and thus has a different perspective. These conflicting perspectives are what lead to ambiguity, which leads me to quite a harsh

The theme of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief is an ironic one. During the time of World War II, where everyone is trying to live on this novel’s main character is death himself. Death loves metaphors so much, it appears that he even thinks in them. His words have both positive and negative meanings. One of the first metaphors is found at the very beginning of the novel. He explains about what bothers him about his job. He says, “I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise.” (5). Death explains that the hardest part of his job is not taking the souls who have already deceased but watching the one who barely made it. Watching the ones who are left behind in the mess, the “jigsaw puzzle”. They must cope with the loss of their loved ones. The Holocaust was a grueling time, where no one knew what to expect, almost like a puzzle.

The acts of human nature can become a very difficult concept to understand. Markus Zusak uses Death throughout the The Book Thief to express the complexity of human nature. Death illustrates how complicated beings humans are and how they hold the capacity to act in both evil and beautiful ways. Throughout the novel Death helps give readers insight to the ignorance displayed and the pain it may cause a person. In the most troublesome and discriminatory times of the Holocaust, Death will point out the beautiful acts of compassion carried out by characters involved in the novel. Sometimes beauty and pain is mixed within the sacrifice some make for those they love and are loyal to.

The book The thief of always by Clive Barker is a fable about a young boy who bored out of his mind and finds the Holiday House, the dream house and the house of illusions that the evil Mr.Hood snatches away time. Little details like the illustrations make a giant difference on the plot of this fable. Barker does many important stuff with the illustrations in the story such as foreshadowing, creating suspense, and symbolism.

In stories there will be objects that will constantly be mentioned within the story. This is what is known as Symbolism. Symbolism is the use of object, name, or person to represent an idea. If a name is being use, a name such as autumn can represent the adulthood of a human. Creatures such as an Eagle, represents ‘Freedom’ and ‘America’. Even inanimate objects can represent ideas; the light bulb represents ideas that just sparked into a character’s head.

For my opening body paragraph, one important literary device that both authors used is symbolism. In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak starts of the symbol around the end of the book. Even though The Book Thief is a morbid and a demonic book which has a lot of war and death in it, the dominoes represents how they, “were falling like dead bodies in the living room.” (410). Well, in The Things They Carried, it also has the same symbol which relates back to dominoes and how Tim protested against the war, but not enough to be considered a pacifist. Also, how he thought about, “Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savoir, or both, or neither?... What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes?” (38). That showed how the

In history, art has been known as a production of works for emotional power. Art is formed by artists who have a story to share. It is used to express a deep emotion they cannot quite put into words, for example, sorrow or grief. Throughout the novel, Markus Zusak shows people distracting themselves from desperate times of sorrow through art. The use of art in The Book Thief represents creative outlets used as a coping mechanism for each character. The forms of art in the midst of pain are an accordion, a sketchbook, and books. To someone who were to pick up one of these items wouldn’t see much importance but to the main characters, they are what keeps them inspired and hopeful during the catastrophic events caused by Hitler.

The items I have brought in that are symbolic to the text is the following (pulling them out one by one): A horseshoe (to represent luck and hope), a multi-tool (to represent survival), a Jar of ash (to represent the lifelessness and landscape), a can of Coca Cola (to represent the past and the boy in the novel) and finally a simple backpack (to represent a journey). The multi-tool is related to physical aspects of a human because it gets the job done, for example the mini saw is used to cut branches off trees, similar to how the human has hands to prepare food or put up a tent.