Death In The Book Thief

Throughout the novel ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zuzak, Death narrates the life of Liesel Meminger, from the time of her younger brother’s death until her death decades later. As the novel continues numerous themes and ideas are explored through several language techniques and writing styles. The novel explores the themes of life and mortality, the power of words and death. As these themes and ideas are explored throughout the novel – they are employed through numerous techniques including, the format of Death narration. Through the use of similes, metaphors, imagery and symbolism used by the author in ‘The Book Thief’
Themes of death, life and mortality and words are explored throughout the book thief, through the use of similes these themes …show more content…
Death’s use of symbolism, particularly in relation to colours, is introduced early in the novel. As Death continues to narrate the characters in the novel, he often refers to the colours of his surroundings. Upon collecting the soul of Liesel’s brother he attempts to focus on the colours around him. “First the colours. / Then the humans. / That’s how I usually see things. / or at least how I try.” (Page three) and “The last time I saw her was red.” (Page thirteen) This introduces the importance of colours and how this form of symbolism will be portrayed throughout the novel. Symbolism in regards to colour is used often when Death is forced to collect the souls of the dead. When Death first begins to narrate the story he references the colour (white) around him as he collects Liesel’s younger brother, later he references the colour of the sky and the wreckage around him as he collects the souls of all those who died during the bombing of Liesel’s home. The strong use of this symbolism during chapters focusing on the death of characters contributes to the suggestions Death has made during the novel that he does not enjoy the tasks of collecting souls as seeing the dead’s love one mourn. The use of symbolism as contributed largely to the themes of death and courage throughout the novel. Due to the disliking of collecting souls, and the desire to leave this job behind and to take a vacation, this suggests makes the audience believe that despite his name, Death needs a great deal of courage to complete the tasks he’s been doing for centuries – this contributes to sections of the book and allows the audience to have an understanding of Death as a