Compare And Contrast Because I Could Not Stop For Death

The Book Thief is a historical fiction novel by Markus Zusak set in Munich, Germany during the Nazi reign from 1936-1943. The novel incorporates a main character that is, in the beginning, an innocent child who doesn't understand the world and takes her on a journey where she grows up and matures through the hardships and challenges of her life. The story is narrated by the character Death, who is a fresh take on the Grim Reaper, only wearing the black cloak when it's cold and never carries a syte. Death describes the life Liesel Meminger, an orphaned girl who witnesses her brother's death and burial and finds herself being adopted by the benevolent old couple, the Hubermanns. The rest of the story follows Liesel's journey through her incredibly challenging life with the Hubermanns and characters such as Rudy, The mayor's wife, and Max helping her along. Symbolism in The Book Thief deepens the story by conveying many different ideas and emotions that supports the reader's understanding of the story. This is especially apparent with the use of the gravediggers to help the reader remember characters, the use of color to help the reader feel the proper emotions and remember the correct events, and the use of Liesel's changing feelings about Rudy to convey how Liesel grows and matures through the book.

He tells the story from his point of view as he takes a special interest in Liesel Meminger, by watching her and reading her stories. Death feels like he has an emotional connection with humans, and therefore dislikes his job of taking souls away. “It kills me sometimes, how people die…He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry” (Zusak, 329). Death feels like his job is a punishment,which makes it difficlult for him because he shouldn’t have a conscience but he does. The way he narrates the novel, makes us feel like he’s trapped inside. As he watched over Liesel, there were obstacles that got in the way. He didn’t have a choice when he had to take the Hubermann’s and Rudy’s life away. At the night of the Nazi book burning, Liesel looked around to see if anyone is watching her steal the book, but all along she did’t know that Death witnessed all her acts of thievery. In The Book Thief, death is an example of an atypical narrative structure whom takes upon himself to watch over an orphan who lost all her loved one’s after the bombings on Himmel street. The way the story was narrated made the novel seem more interesting, and makes us view it in a different

In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, main character Liesel struggles to maintain the innocence of her childhood while combating the beliefs and hardships of living in Nazi Germany. The most predominant theme in this book was the use of fear and its complete and pure power when combined with death. As Mark Twain once said, “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” This quote truly explains the essence of The Book Thief, the fundamental reason being that death was the narrator. Which from start to finish, displayed the fears of a multitude of different people and how they see death, but more importantly how death sees them.

Death is a topic that unites all of humanity. While it can be uncomfortable to think about, confronting death in unavoidable. “Dying” addresses that discomfort and universal unwillingness to consider the inevitability of death. Pinsky’s use of imagery, symbolism, and tone create a poetic experience that is like death, something every reader can relate to. In “Dying,” Pinsky describes how people are oblivious and almost uncaring when it comes to the thought of death. Pinsky is trying to convince the reader that they shouldn’t ignore the concept of death because life is shorter than it seems.

Death. To many, it is the end of life and start of a new beginning from this world, but in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Death is our narrator. He is the one who guides us through the life of a young German girl named Liesel during Nazi Germany. Death manages to see her three times, and soon enough, becomes fascinated by her and the trials she must face in her life. Liesel manages to change Death’s character, surprising him in a way he thought humans never could and changing his viewpoint on them forever.

The acts of human nature can become a very difficult concept to understand. Markus Zusak uses Death throughout the The Book Thief to express the complexity of human nature. Death illustrates how complicated beings humans are and how they hold the capacity to act in both evil and beautiful ways. Throughout the novel Death helps give readers insight to the ignorance displayed and the pain it may cause a person. In the most troublesome and discriminatory times of the Holocaust, Death will point out the beautiful acts of compassion carried out by characters involved in the novel. Sometimes beauty and pain is mixed within the sacrifice some make for those they love and are loyal to.

The character of Death has human like empathy rather than just being the supernatural being readers would expect. The narrator tries to give their work more positive meaning by collecting stories and the emotions that come from the people he sees within his work. Such as Liesel, the protagonist from this novel. A “life” of the

Markus Zusak’s novel, The Book Thief, tells the heart-wrenching story of Liesel Meminger, a German girl, as she navigates adolescence in Nazi Germany. With his convincing depiction of the time, it could be said that Zusak worked within the conventions of realistic fiction were it not for his otherworldly narrator—Death. Death traditionally marks the end of a story, so Zusak’s decision to begin his novel with Death’s voice piqued my interest. This interest was intensified by Death’s unique characterization—he is personified, yet retains his inhuman features. This incongruity in conjunction with the aberrant choice in narrator raised the question:

Death is the great equalizer. No matter the person, death comes to all eventually. The idea that no matter what one does or says death’s grip is ever present scares a large majority of people. This means death is not a topic typically approach with thoughtful discussion in normal conversation, rather it is regulated to philosophers and academics. Cathy Malkasian seeks to challenge that notion in her graphic novel Percy Gloom. In it, Malkasian uses symbols that at first seem absurd, or amusing to broach the topic of death and deep truths surrounding it, in an accessible way. The three biggest symbols that Malkasin uses are the goats, the muffins, and Safely Now.

Humanity craves the control over almost anything that can harm or act as a disadvantage. As predominant as the sun that burns in the sky, mortality has been a constant factor that dictates human condition. That is because the concept of mortality is arguably one of the most pivotal aspects that literature has unceasingly toyed with to influence the reader’s perspective of death. However, why is it age-old classics or even modern-contemporary works provoke readers to accept the ultimate end? To what extent can literature force us to accept or own mortality? Literature holds thin stabbing fingers to the face of readers through creating characters with various mindsets that force us to accept the harsh reality

The character of Death acts as the narrator in Marcus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief, adding another layer to an already poignant novel. Death holds a great interest in the colors of the sky when people die, which helps to create a vast and interesting background for the novel to play out on. These colors help distract Death as he takes the souls of the dead. Colors being described in detail by Death happens three times, all of them being used during the prologue in order to set the tone for the novel.

The idea of death is one that has been thoroughly analyzed throughout literary history; its powerful presence in the lives of all humans is addressed with both fear and anxiety, yet it is still venerated as the greatest mystery mankind has ever faced. Great American author Joseph Heller invokes that very fear of death throughout his literary works, and focuses on man’s undeniable mortality, as well as his attempt to avoid the inevitable end. Heller draws upon both personal experience and his own overly-logical mentality towards the modern world while writing his novels, thus instilling his sarcastic and occasionally caustic tone through the voices of his characters. However, the overall theme of death is still prevalent throughout his novels, and its haunting presence reminds the reader of the tragic end to human life.

Throughout literature, Death has been portrayed by rich array of personifications usually taking the form of a malevolent being such as a grim reaper, ferryman, hunter, or horseman. In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death," the speaker reveals her calm acceptance of death by personifying death as a polite suitor who has called upon her. She casts an air of anticipation and acceptance of death, rather than fear, as he accompanies her on a carriage ride to eternity. The protagonist speaks from the grave and manipulates the words in order to create powerful images that add to the global theme of the poem. In "Because I could not stop for Death," the speaker, using strong symbolic figurative language and vivid imagery, reveals her notion of death and the infinite beyond as an expected part of the endless progression of the circle of life.

In “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” Dickinson uses personification to create a kind, gentle side of Death from the perspective of the deceased. For the speaker, the arrival of Death is treated like the arrival

Death as a theme in storytelling has always been popular for centuries. Experiencing someone important dying is an idea people have an inherent connection to. The difference is how one perceives death and how one deals with it on an emotional level. There are countless examples of books with different, unique interpretations of death, but this essay will focus on just two: Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Both of these stories have main characters that must come to terms with death, but the ways they go about it and the conclusions they come to are vastly different. Death as a literary device to shows the benefits of freedom in accepting situations that people do not have the power to change in both The Garden Party and Frankenstein by showing opposite ways one can handle death and the results of those choices.