Table of Contents
Introduction
The book thief tells the tales of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl living during World War II who finds her life increasingly tied to book many of which, as the title suggest, are stolen. Seemingly abandoned by her parents and witness to her younger brother’s death by illness, Liesel is sent to live with a foster family in a small town in Munich. There, she begins a relationships with the books the challenges and sustains her during darkest moments of war and ultimately eve saves her life. SUMMARY The book thief begins with an introduction by its narrator, Death. He offers a brief explanation for his involvement in the story about to begin. As death, he explains, he occupies himself by taking note of the color of the sky at the moment he takes the soul of a dying person. This is also, he points out, way a keep from noticing the living, the survivors who are left behind crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. Sometimes, however a survivor catches his eye during the course of his work. One of these is a girl he calls “The book thief” whom he sees three times while walking taking the souls of others.
The first time he saw the girl he was outside a train in the snow, under a blinding white sky. The girl’s young brother had suddenly died as the two journeyed by train with their mother. The second time was year later, when the girl appeared at the site of a crashed plane under a black sky the pilot was not yet dead when she arrived. The third time was under a glowing red sky, among the ruins of a devastated city. The girl, standing dazed in the bombed-out remains of her former neighborhood, dropped the book she was holding. Death watched as workers piled the book onto a stack of garbage to be hauled away, and on an impulse he acted” I climbed aboard and took it in my hand, not realizing that I would keep it and view it several thousand times over the years.”The story that follows is the tale of the book thief and her experiences between Death’s first and third encounter with her.
Critical Evaluation
Although the novel doesn’t explore the idea as deeply, it also makes clear that words hold the power to spread ideas, and it suggests that power can be dangerous.
127 our experts are availableright now
Again, Max suggests this notion in the book he leaves for Liesel when he says Hitler used words to conquer the world. It’s quite a statement given the amount of suffering we see as a result of Hitler’s control, and it shows that something as insubstantial as words can have drastic real-life consequences. The book burning Liesel witnesses also raises this idea. The Nazis burned books to keep people away from certain ideas, as if those ideas would spread like an infection. They clearly feared those ideas, like the one in the book Liesel steals that a Jew could be a hero, because they could undermine the Nazi ideology and therefore the party’s control over Germany.
Conclusion
The conclusion takes place when Liesel dies. Death takes her away but he leaves the book. He wants leave it there. Liesel is very old now and successfully grew a family. After the bombing, she lived with the mayor where she would grow up. Eventually Max would arrive and be reunited with Liesel. After that it fast forwards through Liesel’s life. Death only wishers to note her death and the aftermath.
Reference List
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Thief
