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- Darkness, symbolizing ignorance and despair, figures prominently throughout the book, from the dark basement of the Hubermanns where Liesel learns to read, bringing the light of knowledge into the darkness, to the dark closet where Max hides as he waits to leave Stuttgart.
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- Prologue: The Flag Quotes. 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.
- Part 1: Growing Up a Saumensch Quotes. All told, she owned fourteen books, but she saw her story as being made up predominantly of ten of them. Of those ten, six were stolen, one showed up at the kitchen table, two were made for her by a hidden Jew, and one was delivered by a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon.
- Part 1: The Other Side of Sandpaper Quotes. As for the girl, there was a sudden desire to read it that she didn't even attempt to understand. On some level, perhaps she wanted to make sure her brother was buried right.
- Part 1: The Smell of Friendship Quotes. Papa would say a word and the girl would have to spell it aloud and then paint it on the wall, as long as she got it right.
Analysis. Rudy sets up lines of dominoes with his siblings while his parents talk to the Gestapo in the next room. When he hears the voices get louder Rudy lights a candle and leans against the door, listening. He realizes the Gestapo are here to take him to an elite Nazi school because of his good grades and athletic skill.
In The Book Thief, darkness is a recurring motif that often represents ignorance, secrecy, danger, and death. Conversely, it can also indicate safety and security.
Read more about the kindness and cruelty of humans as a theme. A summary of Part Seven in Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of The Book Thief and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.
- The Power of Words
- The Kindness and Cruelty of Humans
- The Dualities of Nazi-Era Germany
- The Responsibility of The Living to The Dead
Words and stories hold tremendous value in the novel, which suggests that they are among the most powerful ways in which people connect with one another. Numerous examples of the ways words connect people turn up throughout the story. Learning the alphabet and how to create words is how Liesel and Hans Hubermann begin to develop their deep bond. La...
The novel shows the varying degrees of people’s kindness and cruelty, from the slight to the most extreme examples. Among the small acts of kindness we see are Ilsa Hermann inviting Liesel into her library and Rudy giving the teddy bear to the dying pilot represent the kind end of the spectrum. On the other hand, we see similar acts of cruelty, suc...
From the moment Rudy paints himself black to emulate Jesse Owens, we see that characters often have two faces, or sides. While on the surface Rudy appears to be an ideal Aryan, so much so that the Nazis try to recruit him into a special training center, inside he emulates an African-American, which directly contradicts Nazi ideology. Max, meanwhile...
Because many of the characters in the novel have lost family members, many wrestle with the survivor’s guilt of continuing to live while their loved ones do not. Hans feels he owes his life to Erik Vandenburg, who indirectly saved him during World War I. As a result, he believes he is responsible for caring for Erik’s family in any way they need, a...
The Book Thief has many themes and they include love and kindness as expressed by Liesel and her foster family; literacy and power, as seen when Liesel learns to read and explore the world of words, cruelty and suffering as experienced by the Jews in the hands of the Nazis.
Darkness, symbolizing ignorance and despair, figures prominently throughout the book, from the dark basement of the Hubermanns where Liesel learns to read, bringing the light of knowledge into the darkness, to the dark closet where Max hides as he waits to leave Stuttgart.
