Analysing Language- The Power of Words

In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, the significance of words is emphasized through personifying them and showing their impact on Liesel Memingers life.

Zusak uses personification of words to emphasize the power of negative words in Liesel’s argument with Isla Hermann, by showing how words can injure someone, “The injury of words, Yes, the brutality of words… Cuts had opened and series of wounds were rising to the surface of her skin, All from the words”
The words were personified to show how Liesel’s words were physically hurting Isla and creating imaginary injuries as she hurled her hurtful words at Isla. Zusak did this to make the reader realize how our actions, even if not physical, can have the power to hurt someone and cause damage.
Another way that Zusak showed the importance of words through personfication was when Liesel began writing her story in the book that Isla gave her.
“She also gave her a reason to write her own words, to remind her that words had also brought her to life”. This line shows how Liesel’s journey from learning in the basement to reading her stolen books and to eventually writing her own story gave her something to focus on during the testing times of Nazi Germany and “brought her to life” not literally but figuratively. Liesel discovered who she was and she was no longer “the book thief without the words”
Zusak personified words to have’ brought her to life’ to show how humans are able to find something to use as a coping mechanism when facing troubling times, by showing that Liesel used words as a way to weather the horrors of the war in Germany and how it was impacting her life.

Another time, when the importance of words is shown through personification, is near the end of the book, when Liesel’s words ‘saved her life’. When Himmel Street was bombed, Liesel was writing in the basement and the only survivor from Himmel Street. “She was holding desperately on to the words who had saved her life”. Liesel was not literally holding onto words, but she was holding on to her black book that contained her words and her story. Her words meant that she was in the basement and safe from the bombing, and the only survivor from Himmel St. This is the second time in The Book Thief that words saved a life. In WW1, Hans wrote letters instead of fighting and was the only survivor from his ‘platoon?’. Zusak is emphasizing the power of words by using them to save Hans and Liesel’s lives.
Zusak personified words in the Book Thief to show how words gave Liesel purpose in life and a means to manage the horrors of Nazi Germany and words also became the thing that saved her life. This shows Liesel’s complicated relationship with words and the impact they had on her life growing up during the war.

Zusak personifies words in order to elevate their meaning in the text and show the reader their importance and effect on the main character, Liesel Memingers life.

Maybe add in Liesels quote ” The Fuhrer wouldn’t exist without words”?
Add in the theme of how words save lives ( saved Hans from WW1 , saved Liesel from the bombing)

In Max’s story The Word Shaker, ‘great forests of words” were planted by the Führer in order to signify how he was able to use words to control a nation. Under his rule, the German people were manipulated and controlled into believing what he was telling them, thus Zusak used words to show that “It was a nation of farmed thoughts”
This makes it easy for the readers to understand the power that words have on the world

The irony of Markus Zusak’s emphasise on words is that he is using words to show their importance.

The irony of this is that The Book Thief is just a series of words strewn together by Markus Zusack, but similar to how Liesel uses words to discover herself and create her own story, Zusak has used words to create a story for us.