What Are The Similarities Between The Book Thief And This Is The Enemy
When examining Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief and the Office of War Information's poster This Is the Enemy, I could not help but to notice many similarities scattered among the two works. The similarities between their settings, conflicts, and atmospheres are striking, leading me to the conclusion that both the novel and poster are relevant to each other, despite not being created in the same time period. Within the settings of the two works, I noticed how the years and locations corresponded. The novel is primarily set in the 1940’s, as shown in the chapter titled “Hitler’s Birthday, 1940” (Zusak 101), and the poster was created in 1942. Furthermore, both are set in Nazi Germany. Because the settings are undeniable similar, this led me
to believe that the two works are in fact relevant to each other. After some more digging and analyzing, I found more similarities amidst their conflicts. In the novel, one of the prevalent conflicts is the lack of freedom there is to express one’s self. Death, the story’s narrator, constantly describes how the Jewish are being persecuted for their ideologies. This is displayed when Death says “The star of David was painted on their doors” (51), and it was painted on to identify the offenders. The poster expresses the same issue; the absence of the freedom to express one’s self in Nazi Germany. The stabbing of the Bible in the visual insinuates that one cannot express him/herself unless it matches the ideologies of the Führer, otherwise severe punishments will follow. The brutality of the maltreatment the Jewish face and the idea of punishments ushered me over to inspect the novel and poster’s atmosphere, and to my surprise, more similarities arose. Both The Book Thief and This Is the Enemy have dark and gloomy atmospheres because of the way the environment surrounds each is explained and/or shown. In part nine of the novel when people were hiding from the bombing raids, everyone was described as having an overwhelming sense of fear as the bombs dropped down. This fear made the atmosphere sinister and dark. In the poster, the same dark atmosphere that was shown in the novel is displayed through the colours and the message, leading me to believe that the two works are indeed relevant. Therefore, because their settings, conflicts, and atmospheres all relate to one another, it is safe to say that both the novel and poster are relevant to one another.
to believe that the two works are in fact relevant to each other. After some more digging and analyzing, I found more similarities amidst their conflicts. In the novel, one of the prevalent conflicts is the lack of freedom there is to express one’s self. Death, the story’s narrator, constantly describes how the Jewish are being persecuted for their ideologies. This is displayed when Death says “The star of David was painted on their doors” (51), and it was painted on to identify the offenders. The poster expresses the same issue; the absence of the freedom to express one’s self in Nazi Germany. The stabbing of the Bible in the visual insinuates that one cannot express him/herself unless it matches the ideologies of the Führer, otherwise severe punishments will follow. The brutality of the maltreatment the Jewish face and the idea of punishments ushered me over to inspect the novel and poster’s atmosphere, and to my surprise, more similarities arose. Both The Book Thief and This Is the Enemy have dark and gloomy atmospheres because of the way the environment surrounds each is explained and/or shown. In part nine of the novel when people were hiding from the bombing raids, everyone was described as having an overwhelming sense of fear as the bombs dropped down. This fear made the atmosphere sinister and dark. In the poster, the same dark atmosphere that was shown in the novel is displayed through the colours and the message, leading me to believe that the two works are indeed relevant. Therefore, because their settings, conflicts, and atmospheres all relate to one another, it is safe to say that both the novel and poster are relevant to one another.