The overarching theme of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is ironic. Here is a novel where the main character is nothing less than the symbol of mortality itself, Death, but where the story continually celebrates the spirit of life contained in the books. Books are certainly inanimate objects, but they are also a lot like Death: a mere symbol of the stories they contain rather than the tangible embodiment of these living, breathing characters. And yet, the message that keeps recurring throughout the story is that a book can have many lives. Books, the story suggests, are almost like cats blessed with the myth of multiple lives, as they are capable of suddenly reappearing after a long stay away from your consciousness. The Book Thief is a novel that evokes the metaphor of each reader bringing their own meaning to the act of reading in the real world, primarily through its proposition that readers have the power to take on the hatred intended by the author from Mein Kampf. This book becomes a literal key to revealing what the reader wants to say in the story, creating freedom by undermining a symbol of totalitarianism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Death narrates the book and sums up early on for readers what they should expect from the story when he states that "it's really just a little story." , among other things: a little girl, a few words, an accordionist, fanatical Germans, a Jewish fighter and quite a few thefts” (5). If a reader took Death at his word, The Book Thief might well turn out to be a relatively interesting story filled with crazy Krauts, a sort of fight club, weird music, and probably a moral lesson. However, death is not entirely sincere; Death, as usual, is ironic. This statement is an example of real irony, not the "disappointing" kind of irony like rain on your wedding day. It understates what the book is actually about, and from the start, the theme that The Book Thief is about the power of books to hold multiple meanings for multiple readers is clear. The reader who only understands irony in his modern "disappointment" mentality will not interpret the book in the same way as someone who understands the literary meaning of irony. The opening section establishes a motif that continues to appear throughout the novel in which understanding the meaning of a text depends on the reader's relationship to that text. For example, most readers of this novel are probably already aware by the time they open the book that Mein Kampf was written by Adolf Hitler with the aim of rousing the Germans against the Jews and convincing them that nationalism was the answer to their problems. The way Mein Kampf is used throughout the story reveals that one's relationship with it is – for the most part – stripped of any intentions Hitler may have had. Hans Junior angrily confronts Liesel, telling her: "You are either for the Führer or against him - and I can see that you are against him." You always have been. » What this quote actually says is that a person can read a book intended to produce one response and experience the exact opposite response. When this happens, the book does not die, it is reborn. Here again, the irony is explicit: death is. the narrator, but even when Death narrates, a book is a living thing, not just a living thing, but a thing that can be resurrected to have new meaning with each new.