Question One: White is represented to be the snowy weather and the coldness of the event that is taking place. This colour imagery makes me think everyone is very cold and the characters have a certain innocence like this colour is controlling their minds and bodies. White gives a feeling of softness maybe hence referring in the way Liesel’s brother died, was peacefully and innocently. Death says “white is without question a colour,” maybe because he still able to pick up the sense of what is happening and the emotions like any other colour.

Black signifies death and darkness and the night time or early morning time sky. It shows obviously something tragic had happened maybe at night or early morning. This colour maybe highlights that the characters have just experienced something tragic, it shows maybe people are trying to prevent the certain event from happening but there is no way of overcoming this blackness. Black generally makes me think death, for example like being a sleep or closing your eyes, being a sleep you almost have no senses like you can no hear or feel or practically remember anything. Death and sleep are close counter parts I believe, although I like sleep a lot more.

Red in the pages 13-15 represent the bombings happening and the catastrophic events taking place like the planes fighting and the continuous fires from bombings on houses. This colour gives a feeling of anger between some and the feeling that there is an emergency. When I personally think of this colour I think of furiousness or anger, or even sometimes racing for example in this case racing to the underground basements do give these innocent families a slight chance of surviving as this is exactly what the scene is setting. “the sky was like soup, boiling and stirring.” I believe this references to Liesel’s emotions as she has just experienced something catastrophic, which is pathetic fallacy. Rage is going to impact Liesel throughout the text and it shows that she might experience a lot of this redness of rage around her throughout the book. Red I believe drives and is Nazi-Germany morals and ethics. Its almost a physical thing that fuels their passion.

Question two: The reference relates to the nazi flag as first pointing out the obvious these are the three main and only colours represented on the flag. White black and red full perfectly inline with what these German soldiers want and are, death to all “inferior” people, these “minor” people can be seen to be described as white, innocence and vulnerable. “Thick soupy red,” seen to be the furiousness and motivation, and there anger in the people who don’t believe in what they believe in which was anti-jewish. I believe this German nazi flag during the time of world war 2 could have represented every singe citizen no matter from what country, religion or race. Black, the sign of death, which was all around them, almost a normality. White, the feeling of innocence, not knowing what the next day will bring, and red the feeling of anger towards the selfish people who put the whole world through this dark and terrible time. These colour references I believe highly relate to Liesel as throughout her life time she experiences all three of these things with such intensity it gives Death a feeling of sorrow for her, which is ironic as most people see Death to be emotionless, almost like it loves people suffering. Black on the nazi flag may represent darkness. This darkness could be translated to what the Hubermann’s have to do to hide Max who is a jew. This darkness not only what max is in for over 2 years but the darkness and shadiness of doing this, which if caught a whole lot of darkness and black would be rained on Hans Hubermann.

Death interestingly said “For me, the sky was the color of Jews.” Death uses these colours to represent the mood of the day and reflect the colour of the sky to be what humans are feeling like. Usually when he say the colour black meaning there is a lot of death. Zusak could be meaning that firstly a lot of jewish people had died as generally some people refer it to going to heaven maybe refering to this as people believe heaven is in the clouds somewhere. But maybe also Markus was meaning that every single person seeing this jewish colour in the sky was reflecting their mindset and mood:  feeling hopeless, innocent, all of them being stripped from there loved ones, the hunger and the poverty stricken neighbourhoods going through such hard times, although nothing compared to the Jewish people.

During the beginning of the book thief, death say “Personally, I like a chocolate-colored sky. Dark, dark chocolate.” This colour reference I believe is very important as it signifies what death is and what he maybe believes in and his personality. I see brown (others might not as we all have our own stereotypes of it) to be warmth, and something to be accomplishing, hearty and the feeling as though everything is there. I believe this is deaths favourite as Markus Zusak presents death to have emotion and feeling towards human beings hence he likes seeing this colour in the sky as he knows everything is safe and he does not need to take anyones souls from any innocent people as he believes the colour of the sky reflects the mood of the human beings,

3. Reference to the book burning.

“And now, we say goodbye, to this rubbish, this poison….The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences. On the other side, beyond the blurry heat….you didn’t see people. Only uniforms and signs.”  This reference of burning white paper is a historical reference as they wanted to cleanse and have a fresh start on what Germany was embarrassed of which was there history post war as there was so much poverty it was unbelievable. White paper describes innocence and hence why the burnt this innocence as they wanted to become superior like red and orange flames. Seeing only uniforms and signs shows firstly how intense the fire is but also that Germany Is now all the same like every person has the same identity, all following the signs. 

“Everything was so desperately noisy in the dark when he was alone. Each time he moved, there was the sound of a crease. He felt like a man in a paper suit.” This colour reference of black shows how under powering it can be in some situations, for example the slightest noise overpowering this darkness, this specific type of darkness reflects the minority people in Germany for example the Jews and Darker skinned races during this time, and hence reflects this powerless idea relating between darkness and race.

“He (Rudy) smeared the charcoal on, nice and thick, till he was covered in black. Even his hair received a once over.” This colour image shows that Rudy has innocence of not knowing what was wrong and what was right during those times. Putting this charcoal on nice and thick means he wants to not be mistaken for who he is and wants to be fully represented as black. This powerfulness of black can be related to death’s blackness its influencing and during those times was almost sometimes wanted due to the terrible conditions. Although in both cases the people that want this powerfulness and black do not obviously know the outcomes, for example in Rudy’s case his family being labelled a minority lover or in the people that pleade for death the grief that it leaves behind on close ones.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Category

Writing