Introduction In his novel, The Book Thief, Markus Zusak writes about a young German girl who is placed in foster care during the early years of World War II by mother who is too ill to take care of her. This character is forced to face a series of events during this time of Nazi Germany and survives this horrible part of her life by finding or stealing books. The author uses Death as a narrator to help discuss the stories event, helping to bring the mind and emotions of his characters to life. Within Zusak’s novel, which appears to be related to his childhood, he writes about the theme of duality. This theme, appearing more frequently in the epilogue discusses the kindness and cruelty of the human race while blending it with the duality of characters in the Nazi-era Germany.
Research Paper English 201 August 7, 2008 The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the deaths described in the “Suicide Note” by Janice Mirikitani and “Out, Out”,by Robert Frost. Both poems have distinct differences and similarities. Both poems are similar in that they are written to describe the pain of death. The two poems are similar in that the author uses personification to give the reader a “feel” for what is going on, and how the series of events take place. Additionally, the two poems are similar in that in Suicide Note, the college student is trying to please her family by getting perfect grades; she is working hard at school, and feels that she is not good enough, smart enough, or pretty enough (Mirikitani, 1417); the college student is under pressure to live up to her parent’s expectations.
The story begins with Liesel Meminger, a traumatized nine-year-old girl who starts off as a rather weak-willed child, but over the course of the war she turns into a feisty, courageous young lady, who isn't scared of tackling anyone or anything. The story begins 1939 after she has just witnessed the death and burial of her younger brother on the way to her new foster family, The Hubermanns. During the burial Liesl picks up an object she finds in the snow "The Gravediggers Handbook" which sets up her love of books, even if she has to steal them. Her foster father, the kind accordion-playing Hans Hubermann, teaches her how to read, and together the two of them pass many hours reading the pages of the gravedigger's handbook. Later, when the family takes in a Jewish man, Max Vanderburg, and hides him away, Leisel shares her love of words with him, too.
In “The Story of a Mother,” after having lost her child to illness, a mother goes through several obstacles in an attempt to reunite with her lost child. The writer puts the mother through all these trails to show her selflessness and desperation to the readers, some of whom had to go through a similar struggle with the loss of a child. In the end the bleeding and blind mother decides to leave her child in deaths garden so it might have a chance at beautiful afterlife. This story teaches the lesson to not kill yourself, in an attempt change the unchangeable. Not being able to give her child the wonderful life on earth, the mother finds comfort in leaving the child in God’s care.
She describes that this new relationship was different than before; she feels that now they are closer than ever before. Aleshire points this out in the last stanza “I answer that I love him, too, but hardly knowing him, what I love is the way reserve has slipped from his feeling” (pg. 90) to describe that her father was a doctor and barely had enough time to spend with his daughter. Throughout the poem, Joan shows a message to the audience the love for her father. In Joan Aleshire’s poem, the theme she is portraying is her love for her father and that death is a toll that we all have to take.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak The Book Thief is a story narrated by Death and is about a young girl by the name of Liesel Meminger in Nazi Germany whose mother planned to drop her and her brother off with foster parents in the fictional town of Molching, Germany. She could no longer take care of them, and on the train ride there, her brother died. That’s when Liesel stole her first book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook. She went on to meet her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann and Rudy Steiner, her best friend. Hans and Rosa began to hide a Jewish man, Max Vandenburg, in their basement until Hans made a mistake that forced Max to leave before the authorities came and found him.
A well renowned confessional poem is Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy’ which is addressed to her deceased father; the poem explores and refers to the holocaust in a child-like mellifluous rhythm, synthesising a nursery rhyme tone. Perhaps this conveys Plath’s grief of losing her father when she was young. First of all, the opening line of 'Morning song' “Love set you going like a fat gold watch,” introduces the concept of motherhood as the subject matter of the poem, conveying how the persona, feasibly Plath values and ‘ loves’ her child. The extent of the worth and appreciation of the child is emphasised by the simile ‘like a fat gold watch’ in the notion that the new life represents a likeness of the precious metal and how the persona’s value is similar to that of the admiration that man has for gold. Perhaps, ‘fat’ signifies the sheer size of the Child’s body and how much of a marvel it is that it was inside her for nine months
The book is written as letters to Celie’s God and are written in first person from her perspective. The first letter is the first introduction to Celie’s family hardships. At this time, Celie is a fourteen year old girl whose mother is unwell because she has had too many children, and so her father rapes Celie while her mother is out visiting the doctor. Celie is then pregnant simultaneously to when her mother is sick and nearing death. After Celie gives birth to her first baby, she believes her father took the baby and killed it in the woods while she was sleeping.
Placid Pond Lawrence doesn’t just come out with his theme in the short story “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter.” It is hidden deep within the story and is brought out through symbols in the story. If one can be able to point out the symbols of the story, one can have a better understanding of the story and theme. I found that the theme was that death brings about new understanding, and change which leads to the rebirth of two people’s lives. Of the many symbols Lawrence uses, the first one he mentions would be the churchyard and the graves, Mabel’s mothers specifically. Mabel is a depressed and suicidal woman; after her mother died she feels as though she has nothing else to live for.
The factor of being honest to someone is also affected if a person likes or love somebody. Many people would lie and keep “dark”