Analysis Death returns to this theme of attempting to understand humans and trying to understand how they are able to be responsible simultaneously for so much lightness and so much darkness in the world, how their stories are both beautiful and horrific. Death and Liesel have been near each other […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Epilogue: The Last Color: The Handover ManSummary and Analysis Epilogue: The Last Color: Max
Analysis This chapter serves as a moment of lightness during a very dark time for Liesel. Her reunion with Max is somewhat reminiscent, too, of how she and Rudy once fell to the floor in Alex Steiner’s shop, both of them longing for their fathers. Now, Liesel and Max fall […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Epilogue: The Last Color: MaxSummary and Analysis Epilogue: The Last Color: Wood in the Afternoon
Analysis Just as Ilsa Hermann provided refuge for Liesel with her library, now she comes to offer Liesel a place in their home. Throughout the novel, Frau Hermann has nourished Liesel with words and it was her gift that saved Liesel’s life. In this chapter, Frau Hermann continues to fill […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Epilogue: The Last Color: Wood in the AfternoonSummary and Analysis Epilogue: The Last Color: Death and Liesel
Analysis Here, Death tells what has become of Liesel so many years after the story of her life on Himmel Street and that she, too, is now dead. Death tells us, though, that her soul was very much like her Papa’s, how it rose up to meet him. This is […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Epilogue: The Last Color: Death and LieselSummary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: The End of the World (Part II)
As Death makes his way to the next city, he notices the LSE shouting near a pile of rubble. From it emerges Liesel with her book. She cries out for her Papa and sees an LSE man carrying his accordion case. She takes it from him and then begins to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: The End of the World (Part II)Summary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: The Rib-Cage Planes
Analysis Here, the words that Liesel writes are heavy; they hurt her hand, there’s so many of them. The words also save her life. They keep her in the basement; they keep her writing. In every way, words have saved her.
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: The Rib-Cage PlanesSummary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: Ilsa Hermann’s Little Black Book
Analysis When she thinks about words, Liesel thinks both about their goodness, how they can fill her up and empower her, as well as how they can destroy others and fill them with hate. She realizes all of the awful things for which words are responsible and finds herself despising […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: Ilsa Hermann’s Little Black BookSummary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: Confessions
Analysis In this chapter, Liesel and Rudy grow even closer, and Liesel is more aware of how much Rudy means to her. He is her best friend, and she wants to express her love for him, but she still cannot. She does, though, with her words. By letting Rudy know […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: ConfessionsSummary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: Way of the Words
Analysis Just as Hans once ran out into a parade of Jews, Liesel now does the same, but this time it is for Max. She also fulfills much of the fable that Max wrote in The Word Shaker. She uses words to help Max remember how he’s a fighter and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: Way of the WordsSummary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: The War Maker
Analysis This chapter indicates the progress of the war and how Hitler, while on the defensive, continues to make war and exterminate and punish Jews. Death also reveals that Max Vandenburg has been caught.
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 10: The Book Thief: The War Maker