The novel “The Book Thief” written by Markus Zusak, is based around the life of a girl named Liesel Meminger, who had an immense love for books and words. After her brother’s passing and her mother’s lack of resources, Liesel was sent to a foster family in a small town called Molching, Germany. The difference from this novel to many others is the story is narrated by death. Death is drawn to Liesel and as the novel progresses he comes back to see her on a few occasions. This novel is written with magical realism, it is set in real-time and close to a real place, but death is our narrator who uses colors to describe people and emotions. This book displays how words are powerful and the devastating results of Hitler’s hate for humans. Through my next paragraphs, I’m going to expand on how literature such as personification and foreshadowing allow Markus Zusak to portray his idea of human existence.

Throughout the novel, death continuously says things that make him seem human. This is Markus Zusak using personification, using personification makes readers feel more emotionally connected and understanding of an unreal character or thing. In this case, death is personified, making us connect with him, simply just calling the death a “him” makes it feel more real. There are many different parts of the novel where death feels close to characters and how they emotionally hurt him when taking their souls. An example of this is in the chapter The End Of The World (Part II) when Rudy was found by death lying in the rubble of his home. Then while death carry’s Rudy through the street reminiscing his life, he says “He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.” Death felt connected to Rudy like a friend, he says that Rudy hurts his heart and makes him cry. That’s him showing emotions that only a human hold, these emotions make us relate and hurt with death. The part that makes it even more unusual is, many people think death itself is what takes people away from us, but death is just an outcome of something else. This is what death says at the start of the novel, that he is just an outcome. Meaning that him hurting overtaking life’s of people makes more sense, as he doesn’t like that he has to take them away, he just has too. Another use of personification in the novel is in the chapter The Ribcage Planes, Liesel says “Sometimes I think my Papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear notes.” Liesel Hans playing the accordion but more than that, she loved Hans. She relates his smile and breathes with the notes of the accordion. This is a very beautiful use of personification, it shows the love she had for her Papa in a very graceful way. Personification is a way that Markus Zusak showed magical realism in the novel, he used it for times of love and sadness. Personification in “The Book Thief” was a perfect way to show Markus Zusak’s ideas of human existence, he made death a human-like character in a real life.

Something that is used regularly by death in the book is, traveling forward in time and telling us future events that are to come. This is foreshadowing, foreshadowing adds dramatic tension in a story. Markus Zusak uses it in the book thief, giving us the readers an idea of what’s to come and how things end. He tells us what crucial events are going to happen later on in the story. In the chapter called Confessions, deaths say “ He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death.” This was about Rudy, this is a perfect example of foreshadowing. Death tells us a very huge event that will happen in the future but doesn’t say exactly what happens. By not telling us exactly what happens keeps the interest, making us want to continue to read to find out. Another time death gives us hints of whats so come, is in the chapter The Accordionist where he says “Hans Hubermann was not granted membership of the Nazi party. Not yet, anyway.” By saying not yet anyway tells us that he must be joining later on in the novel. This keeps us interested, as though the novel we learn how Hans doesn’t like the Nazi party, so we ask ourselves “why would he be joining later on?”. Another time foreshadowing is used, is in the chapter “Tricksters” death says “In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer – proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water.” My take on this quote is, humans, can do bad things but with time and observation can do good. Humans are capable of either good or bad, at any time they can choose how they want to use their power. In this quote, death is confused by the actions of humans how some can be so evil and so great. Foreshadowing plays a big part in the genre of magical realism, as knowing the future isn’t something we can do. Things like this happening in the novel, bring us back to reality and we realize how it’s not a real story, but instead a magical look at an event that did happen.

Hitler and his words were a large contributing part of the idea of how humans are powerful and capable of evil. A quote from the chapter “The end of the world (part I) deaths says in “A small, sad hope “”No-one wanted to bomb Himmel street. No-one would bomb a place named after heaven, would they? Would they?” This quote tells me the amount of evil humans are capable of. Saying that “No-one would bomb a place named after heaven, would they?” Tells me that the people bombing didn’t even know what or where they were doing it. They didn’t care about the many innocent lives they were taking or the hearts and souls they were breaking, it was about power. Hitler liked to hold power with his hopeful words that privileged the ones which were his idea of perfect. Hitler did not care about most humans, not even his kind, showing the evilness and hate that he held.
At the end of the novel, in the chapter called “The Handover Man” death says “ A last note from your narrator I am haunted by humans.” Death himself is haunted by humans, humans are powerful they can destroy things within seconds. But they can also create beautiful things and have the power to love. There was a lot of hate shared through this novel but there was also a lot of beauty.

In conclusion, literature such as personification and foreshadowing bring to light the magical realism aspects of “The Book Thief”. Markus Zusak used many different magical realism features to portray his idea of human existence. Through the narrator’s death, this novel showed a beautiful yet saddening look at life for a girl in the time of war. While we followed Liesel and all who she met in the book, we found out the capability of humans whether that was to be greatness or evilness.