Intro

In his novel, “The Book Thief”, Markus Zusak communicates his ideas about the vulnerability of all societies to colluding in atrocities by re-framing the events of the Nazi Holocaust in the mid-20th century. Like many texts in the genre of Magical Realism, a variety of techniques are used by Zusak to help the reader to look at something familiar with new eyes. Zusak uses the language features of personification to show the vulnerability of our society to allow for atrocities.

P1

In the novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak the language feature of personification to show the vulnerability of our society to work into atrocities. “that’s the sort of thing I’ll never know, or comprehend — what humans are capable of” shows to the reader that Death as personified by Zusak is as a sort of all seeing being, cannot comprehend how humans can create such terror amongst themselves. It also portrays the naivety of Death and how he doesn’t know that humans can blank out or forget what others are doing because of the fear that they hold. This fear challenges the preconceptions that the modern world hold about Nazi Germany. This preconception of all Nazi Germans were an evil but this breaks that preconception as it shows that most of the citizens were only living of fear and were not responsible for the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

P2

In the novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak the language feature of personification to show the vulnerability of our society to work into atrocities. Zusak personifies the setting in the novel a number of times, “The streets were ruptured veins. Blood streamed till it was dried on the road”. Zusak personifies the streets of Molching following the bombing raids. This shows that even the earth, which is such a large thing feels the impacts that we, humans throw at each other. This forces the image on the reader that the Earth is uncaring of different societies but when we damage the Earth, it can bleed. This shows to the reader that

P3

Conclusion

Zusak in his novel “The Book Thief”