Seeing Colors In A New Way
The book, The Book Thief is arguably one of the most popular and beloved books of it’s time, and for good reason. It is the story of a young girl in Munich, Germany, who is taken from her parents and sent into the foster system. Yet, she finds love along with many more emotions among her new foster parents and friends. There are many aspects to this story which the author, Zusak, incorporated in order to connect with a broader audience. However, he also had individual motives for everything he incorporated within the story, each of them important, yet one has caught the eye of many readers. Markus Zusak wrote The Book Thief with the intention of expressing the complex nature of humans, through the use of colors. …show more content…
One particular girl has colors which might surprise readers initially. Liesel Meminger, the focus of the book, is seen three times in total by Death. The first time he sees Liesel, Death describes the colors as being a blinding white, on the day her brother died. The next, he described as being black, the darkest moment before dawn as a bomb pilot crashed and died. The last time he saw Liesel, death claimed she was red, like boiling, bubbling, soup. On this day, a Soviet bomb fell onto Himmel street and killed all of her loved ones. “They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red” (Zusak 14). This quote expressed that these colors which represent Liesel, all fall into place to form the Nazi flag. One might wonder why death sees a child in this way, but the answer is not what one might think. Death sees the colors of the Nazi flag in Liesel, because it was the Nazi’s which took away everything from her and molded her life. Had they not taken away her father for being a communist, Liesel’s brother might not have died, and she might not have been sent to a foster home. If Hitler wouldn’t have gone against the English, the bomb pilot wouldn’t have crashed and died. Had Hitler not attacked Russia, they might not have accidentally dropped that bomb on Himmel street. It is revealed that even she realizes this when Liesel says, “Did the Führer take her away?... I knew it. I hate the Führer” (Zusak 115). Once Liesel realized that it was Hitler who had taken her family away, her hatred for him began to grow. This only continued throughout the course of the story, as more and more was taken away from her. This is a prime example however, of the way that Death is able to convey this complex idea of each human’s life through the use of
The book, The Book Thief is arguably one of the most popular and beloved books of it’s time, and for good reason. It is the story of a young girl in Munich, Germany, who is taken from her parents and sent into the foster system. Yet, she finds love along with many more emotions among her new foster parents and friends. There are many aspects to this story which the author, Zusak, incorporated in order to connect with a broader audience. However, he also had individual motives for everything he incorporated within the story, each of them important, yet one has caught the eye of many readers. Markus Zusak wrote The Book Thief with the intention of expressing the complex nature of humans, through the use of colors. …show more content…
One particular girl has colors which might surprise readers initially. Liesel Meminger, the focus of the book, is seen three times in total by Death. The first time he sees Liesel, Death describes the colors as being a blinding white, on the day her brother died. The next, he described as being black, the darkest moment before dawn as a bomb pilot crashed and died. The last time he saw Liesel, death claimed she was red, like boiling, bubbling, soup. On this day, a Soviet bomb fell onto Himmel street and killed all of her loved ones. “They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red” (Zusak 14). This quote expressed that these colors which represent Liesel, all fall into place to form the Nazi flag. One might wonder why death sees a child in this way, but the answer is not what one might think. Death sees the colors of the Nazi flag in Liesel, because it was the Nazi’s which took away everything from her and molded her life. Had they not taken away her father for being a communist, Liesel’s brother might not have died, and she might not have been sent to a foster home. If Hitler wouldn’t have gone against the English, the bomb pilot wouldn’t have crashed and died. Had Hitler not attacked Russia, they might not have accidentally dropped that bomb on Himmel street. It is revealed that even she realizes this when Liesel says, “Did the Führer take her away?... I knew it. I hate the Führer” (Zusak 115). Once Liesel realized that it was Hitler who had taken her family away, her hatred for him began to grow. This only continued throughout the course of the story, as more and more was taken away from her. This is a prime example however, of the way that Death is able to convey this complex idea of each human’s life through the use of