Examples Of Figurative Language In The Book Thief

Words: 411
Pages: 2

Liesel and the Hubermanns. They struggle. They cry. They die. But what is really behind this? Markus Zusak tells readers the story of Liesel through the narrator, Death. Death brings them to see World War II through his eyes. The theme of the story is that people need to have knowledge when they are in a dangerous situation. Zusak writes vividly about the colors of the sky during the war using figurative language. For example, when he was describing the colors of the sky, he wrote, “The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness” (Zusak 12). The figurative language in the quotation was when Death told the readers that there were black crumbs and pepper in the sky. He was talking about all of the ashes and the explosions. …show more content…
A quote written by Markus Zusak on page 71 supports this theme, “It traveled and wondered but disclosed no answers. Not yet.” The quote is important to determine the theme in the story because it tells readers that the characters do not have answers. And they need answers to their questions because during, and after the war, no one knows what will happen.
A literary device that is used in the quote as well is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is telling the reader what will happen, but saying it subtly and helping them make a prediction of what might happen. The way that Death says, “Not yet.” (Zusak 71) is just saying that what they are looking for, they will find it sometime in the future. Death also used imagery in the story as another literary device. An example of imagery is, “Snowflakes of ash fell so lovelily you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them” (Zusak 13). He was describing the ashes again. How there were so many that it looked like it was