The Book Thief Project Help?
For the main characters, see "The Book Thief Characters:" http://www.shmoop.com/book-thief/charact... For the main themes, see "The Book Thief Themes:" http://www.shmoop.com/book-thief/themes.... MY Suggestions for the Required Sixteen Questions: 1- In the novel, how do words have the power both to both destroy and save lives? 2- Which act (and by whom) best illustrates courage? 3- Who is your favorite character? Why? 4- What is the effect of having Death serve as the narrator?What are Death’s feelings for each victim? Why is Death haunted by humans? 5- What is ironic about Liesel’s obsession with stealing books? 6- How would the story have been different if Liesel didn't keep having nightmares about her brother? 7- How does Zusak use the literary device of foreshadowing to pull the reader into the story? 8- What is the significance of “The Standover Man?” 9- What is the significance of colors in the book? 10- What does the act of book thievery teach Liesel about life and death? 11- Guilt is another recurring theme in the novel. How does Hans channels his guilt into helping others? 12- Abandonment is a central theme in the novel. At what point does she understand why she was abandoned by her mother? Who else abandons Liesel in the novel? 13- How does friendship change and grow throughout life? 14- How does it take courage to oppose bigotry or a brutal dictator like Hitler? How do people demonstrate courage in their lives? 15- What are the different personifications of death or cultural perceptions of death. 16- How do different cultures use color (i.e. in Japan, for example, at a funeral, people wear white)? Peace :)
What makes The Book Thief a good book?
Really? You find nothing to enjoy or pique your interest in Liesel’s story? Or Max’s? Or in Hans Huberman’s finding resistance born of an old debt and friendship?Perhaps it might help to have a sense of what (in my opinion) Markus Zusak was trying to do, and how that led to the stylistic choices.What I love about The Book Thief is its ability to humanise an episode in human history - Nazi Germany - where from the outside it is hard to understand how ordinary people can have lived under that regime and accepted what it did. Because we need to empathise with the characters, we need to see how Liesel and the Hubermans grow and come to challenge the regime in their own ways, and how they do that through Liesel’s learning and their own empathy for Max and for each other. That in itself makes a powerful point in a subtle way: mass fear and hatred of other human being relies on making them “other” than us, a fiction that breaks down when you know them as individuals. We defuse hatred by connecting with other people.The writing is also very elegantly done. What at first appears a whimsical gimmick - having the story narrated by Death - actually turns out to be crucial to making the book work. Death views human activity dispassionately, without judgement or even full understanding. That gives us a little distance from what happens in the story and allows us to understand the conflicts within the characters’ minds and hearts. A more conventional narrative style would make it harder for us not to see them as morally compromised from the outset.The flip side of that is that the style can be hard to get into, especially if you are picking up and putting down the book. It takes a little effort to get comfortable with Death’s voice and be drawn into the story. But it is well worth it; it’s one of the most satisfying books I have read.
Are there any good movies about the immediate aftermath of WWII in Europe, once the fighting stopped?
Ashes and Diamonds is a 1958 Polish film directed by Andrzej Wajda, based on the 1948 novel.The story takes place in a small town in Poland in May 1945 in the immediate aftermath of WW2 in Europe. Nazi Germany has just surrendered. The war is over, but in Poland civil war is set to continue for 1-2 years. The story is not so much about the continued fighting, more about coping with the consequences of the war.As the German soldiers leave, the remaining Russian forces and Polish resistance fighters must work out the hierarchies of power in "liberated" Communist Poland.What makes it a good film is that Wajda manages to tackle all the precarious postwar issues while creating a piece of cinematography admired by people of all political persuasions. No didactics, no taking sides politically, just a thought provoking spectacle.Who else thinks that it’s a good movie?:Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have cited the film as one of their favourites.Richard Peña in the book 1001 Movies you must see before you die considers the ending of the film to be one of the most powerful and often quoted endings in film history.The film was ranked #38 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.It has been distributed in many countries around the world.It got a prize at Venice Film Festival:It was shown in exotic places such as Japan:This poster is probably from America:Some images which reflect the mood:There is a Blueray version with English subtitles.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashes_and_Diamonds_(film)