White : 7-9
- The colour white is representing the first life taken in the book. It shows that the environment in the scene is taking place in is a winter climate, that snows regularly as the snow must be fresh because its “blinding”. The colour white shows the snow covered all grounds, ” I felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Trees wore blankets of ice” In the action of Leisels brothers life being stripped from his body, all that death could see was a blinding white, showing us how white because a symbol for her brothers death.
Black : 10-12
- The black shows us the colour of the night when planes flew over raiding Himmel street, through the deep dark the black represents another life being stripped in front of Liesel from deaths perspective. We see the difference between black and white as although both insolences have death, Liesel was not in anyway close to the man who died on this dark night. “To show the poles of my versatility”, this comment from death shows us that he has no schedule, death is death and it comes when it pleases.
Red : 13-15
- This time the colour red is not used to represent one person, but instead a whole town of people. Death sees these people as red not maybe not for the blood spilled on the streets but this is the colour these deaths are to him. “The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring”, this shows us that the streets of this town were full of frantic people, screaming and gasping for help while the survivors watch their loved ones be carried away by death.
- All the colours death talks about above suddenly become one as we read, “When I recollect her (Liesel, the “book thief”), I see a long list of
colours, but it’s the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the
most…Red, white, black. They fall on top of each other. The scribbled
signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.” In the short chapters before this sentence we get shown what each colour means to death and how it see’s them, but that goes deeper, each colour seems to recreate a piece of Germany during its change from Liesels view. White is how Liesels brother died on a cold snowy day. Black shows the dark night on which her town was air raided, it also shows the dark years of those Jew’s (like Max) hiding in attics, basements or old warehouses. Those Jew’s were abandoned and treated like rodents. Lastly red represents the biggest most liquid part of the colours, it’s the town of people Liesel has recently come to love, and how they were killed. It shows the blood spilled throughout the streets were the once walked in harmony. From this we can clearly see that the colours of red, white and black all have seperate meanings but have carefully been constructed together to represent the new Germany, Nazi Germany. -
White, description of Frau Hermann. Black, Rudy with the charcoal, Max in the darkness. Red, book burning.