Sunday, March 15, 2009
Discussion #3
In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak uses many different literary elements throughout his writing. Similes, metaphors, descriptive adjectives, are just some of the many elements used. On page 151, Zusak describes a young boy using outstanding adjectives, "Another boy-one of the short, lean ones-with shaggy blond hair and ice-colored skin...” It immediately painted a picture in my mind of what this described boy looked like. Also on page 151, an example of Zusak’s personification is present. “From there, they all examined the apple trees, who stood in long, twisted rows”, this gives tree’s the ability to stand and do human like things while the apple tree is still yet a tree. Lastly, yet another example of personification but this time, we’re talking about bullets. On page 175, Zusak writes, “The conversation of bullets.” Which really can be compared to lots of different things. For one thing, bullets cannot physically talk however, on a deeper level, bullets can be a conversation of death or maybe even a foreshadow is occurring.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"ice-colored skin", that is a way of describing a skin color I have never heard before. It is more descriptive than just saying the boy was pale, but ice colored makes you feel that he is so white that it looks cold or even transparent.
ReplyDeleteLike Alli, I have never heard that description, but I think it really paints a clear picture in your head of what the boy looks like. You have a lot of really great examples that help so much to understand the book, because of the use of figurative language!
ReplyDeleteMaggie, I loved all of your examples of figurative language. I had also stopped to think about the first quote you discussed, I think it is a great example of the unique was Zusak introduces characters to us in this book.
ReplyDelete