Blogging Day 4 [*A*]

Alright, well here we go!

1. What are some abstract ideas presented in your novel? What symbols are used to convey these abstract ideas?

The idea of death itself is pretty abstract, as is the idea of the afterlife. It’s kind of interesting because most people when presented with the idea of death run screaming like a school girl in the opposite direction. ‘The Book Thief’, in spite of this, says “NO.”, and not only decides to work with the idea of death, but make the narrator the grim reaper himself. This adds a really interesting twist to the whole idea, because it’s not often that such a concept is handed to you on the great metaphorical silver platter.

Another interesting concept that is used is a train. When thinking of a train, one might think of new beginnings, maybe leaving an old place, or possibly motion sickness. The abstract train in this case presents all that within about 15 pages. Liesel, our not-so-heroic protagonist, wakes up on this train finding her younger brother lying dead on the seat, gets dragged out of the train and onto the platform WITH her mom, and dead brother while simultaneously being pushed towards the reality of her new parents as she is torn away from her mother and corpse of what used to be her brother as the grim reaper himself takes his soul in front of her (unseen to her eyes of course). Quite a mouthful, isn’t it?

 

2.Why do you think the author chose to use these symbols? Were they effective? If not, suggest other symbols that may have been more suitable. 

Death was an idea presented a lot throughout the holocaust, it only makes sense to make him one of the main characters in the book. He is associated with a lot of things that are relevant to the story.

The train, i’m not too sure about. As mentioned before, it would make sense because of the fact that it presents the thought of leaving a familiar place, and a new beginning. Although i’m not too sure about this symbol in itself, I do find it effective to have used it.