Human’s Existence, Colors, the Power of Words, and Their Meanings
Death, the narrator of The Book Thief, is not a part of humanity, rather a “result”(Zusak 9). Death does not wish for people to die, he simply exists to help humans in their departure from life. It is Death that connects all humans together, and Death who carries the souls onto the conveyor belt to the afterlife. His non-stop work for humans is demanding and taxing on his sanity. As a result, Death aches for a break every now and again, but he must resist the urge. Death even uses the colors of the sky to distract him from the torment of the survivors he may be forced to witness (8). The sheer amount of death and destruction in the world, especially during WWII, that the narrator …show more content…
Stories such as Liesel's take him out of his regular stupor and make him fascinated by the perfect imperfectness of humans. Death tells the reader:
Yes, often, I am reminded of her, and in one of my vast array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt- an immense leap of an attempt- to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it. …show more content…
“They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them… (12)” Although it is not the most effective method, the subtle differences in the colors can serve as a proper distraction from the despair of the living. The three times that Death encounters Liesel, he is taking a soul. He then looks to the sky where he notices three distinct colors during each encounter: white, black, and red. White came from the snowy sky during Liesel's brother’s death, black from the dark sky above the crashed pilot, and red from the fire and smoke filled sky from the destruction during the bombings. While these colors were the literal colors of the sky, the colors that Death sees during his and the Book Thief’s encounters are also highly
Death, the narrator of The Book Thief, is not a part of humanity, rather a “result”(Zusak 9). Death does not wish for people to die, he simply exists to help humans in their departure from life. It is Death that connects all humans together, and Death who carries the souls onto the conveyor belt to the afterlife. His non-stop work for humans is demanding and taxing on his sanity. As a result, Death aches for a break every now and again, but he must resist the urge. Death even uses the colors of the sky to distract him from the torment of the survivors he may be forced to witness (8). The sheer amount of death and destruction in the world, especially during WWII, that the narrator …show more content…
Stories such as Liesel's take him out of his regular stupor and make him fascinated by the perfect imperfectness of humans. Death tells the reader:
Yes, often, I am reminded of her, and in one of my vast array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt- an immense leap of an attempt- to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it. …show more content…
“They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at, although on many occasions I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them… (12)” Although it is not the most effective method, the subtle differences in the colors can serve as a proper distraction from the despair of the living. The three times that Death encounters Liesel, he is taking a soul. He then looks to the sky where he notices three distinct colors during each encounter: white, black, and red. White came from the snowy sky during Liesel's brother’s death, black from the dark sky above the crashed pilot, and red from the fire and smoke filled sky from the destruction during the bombings. While these colors were the literal colors of the sky, the colors that Death sees during his and the Book Thief’s encounters are also highly