The Sorcery of Colours in “The Book Thief”
Ever imagined how would a story narrated by death sound like? Exciting… maybe, even when the dread creeps in and gloom makes your heart heavy – you can’t help it, but read – because
“When death has a story to tell, you listen”
The narrator in Markus Zusak’s book, The Book Thief is death. Death isn’t an ordinary narrator. It smells voices, it tastes visions and it hears colours.
In the prologue of the book, death introduces “himself – the colours – and the book thief”.
THE COLOURS…
Our narrator has a very peculiar interest in colours that it sees them even before the object actually.
“First the colours
Then the humans
That’s usually how I see things
Or at least, how I try”.
The narrator has met the book thief thrice and due to some reasons that the reader finds throughout the book, it seems to be oddly attracted and interested in her life. Death has seen three colours associated to her: red, white black. The story is actually taken on discu ssing these three incidents.
WHITE
Liesel (the book thief) and her brother are travelling in a train along with their mother, who is sending them to live with their foster parents in Munich. Death comes to take away her brother’s soul. That’s the first time it sees Liesel. Death sees a colour. What colours does it see? White… why?
Yes, it was white
It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it had pulled it on, the way you pull on a jumper. Next to the train line, footprints were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice.
White is usually taken as a non-colour, but as death tells us “White is without question a colour”. Out of several other colour symbols which would signify the death of an innocent soul, death sees colour white.
Liesel’s mother seems to depict no emotions. She is silent and shows no sign of grief on the death of her son, she doesn’t talk about it. This tragedy seems to have created a deep narrow void in her heart. She willingly allows this white space devour her.
The book thief tells us about her brother when she found him dead. His eyes were wide open and there were no evident signs of death on him. Death seems to have very subtly taken away his life as if it also pitied for his innocent soul. He died without pain and seemed to have peacefully handed his soul to death.
So does his sister, Liesel… she feels a certain numbness and isn’t able to figure out the situation. The death of her brother and the coldness of her mother, both make her as plain and clueless as the colour white.
Next is a signature black, to show the poles of my versatility, if you like. It was the darkest moment before the dawn.
The visual imagery in this scene is created through words like: dark, smoke, charcoal, cold, brown and more. This is what the narrator remembers as second meeting with the book thief: the colour black.
The plane has crashed, people were gasping for a breath here and there, smoke has filled the death scene. It was a hopeless and helpless moment for people who lost their loved ones in the devastating accident. A sudden end of life would look exactly same: grey, dark and quiet.
This may be seen as a prophecy regarding the negative consequences of technology on the universe and the devolution of humanity.
The third and the last time death sees the book thief is when it was red.
The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked amongst the redness.
The narrator says that he saw red in sky even before the bombs hit the street. The implication of a single symbol to present two different incidents is extraordinary. Red symbolises two contrary emotions. One is associated with death, blood, violence, destruction, rage and like. But, red is seen in a perspective which has to do with passion, enthusiasm, desire, love, and so.
The happy and smiling children playing on the street are passionate and enthusiastic about their game. They spread joy, love and wonder on the street with their high spirits.
This is short lived.
Then bombs.
This time, everything was too late.
The sirens. The cuckoo shrieks in the radio. All too late.
Within minutes, mounds of concrete and earth were stacked and piled. The streets were ruptured veins. Blood steamed till it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there, like driftwood after the flood.
The sky got furious on this sight of violence and terror. Death watched it howling with rage and listened to the spreading blood red clouds all over it. Death saw the colour red as saw the streets.
