The Book Thief: Irony 7 key examples

Alex Steiner is the loving father of Liesel's friend Rudy. As Death states here, he does not hate anyone. In fact, over the course of the novel, he comes to bear the most animosity toward Hitler's oppressive regime, which tears apart his family. It seems strange at first that Steiner would join the party as early as he does. Hatred, after all, is the cornerstone of the Nazi party. Steiner of course hopes that complying will protect his family, but he nonetheless joins without the same intense duress that eventually leads Hans Hubermann to do the same. Steiner, like many other characters, seems too quick to sign up for the party if he truly does not buy into their ideology.

"Point Two" explains why else Steiner and other kind people might be willing to back a genocidal regime: he has read propaganda that warns him of "a plague of Jewish tailors" coming for his business. Steiner is not hateful, but he is fearful. Germany's economy was severely depressed after World War I. Implicit in the novel is the idea that Steiner built his tailoring business in the throes of this economic depression. Even when business is running, he and his wife must make impossible daily choices such as which children will have to go hungry so others can eat. He has always understood that at any time, he and his family might lose what little they have.

For many people, Steiner included, this kind of financial insecurity breeds intense anxiety that does not always remain tethered to reality. The Nazi party exploited this kind of economic anxiety. They published propaganda that scapegoated Jewish people and other minority groups for the poor economy. This propaganda positioned Hitler as the economy's savior. Meanwhile, the Nazis suppressed all media that put forth alternative viewpoints. People like Steiner were drawn into the terrible fantasy that Nazism was the only way they could gain economic security. Fear thus drives many characters to join a party that is otherwise out of line with their feelings. Steiner does not relish in the suffering of others, and yet he has been led to believe that he and his Jewish neighbors are locked in a zero-sum game for survival.

Death lets the reader know that something important will come of Hans's idea, but he does not yet reveal what. He does not even reveal yet what Hans's plan is. The phrases, "We'll give him seven months" and "Then we come for him" are ominous, especially when spoken by Death himself. It almost sounds as though Hans's idea is going to get him killed just a few months from now. The dramatic irony creates suspense, urging the reader to keep turning pages to find out what will happen.

Death, though, is having a bit of fun with the reader. The foreshadowing in this passage plays on Death's role not only as Death, but also as the narrator. He "comes for" characters in both capacities, either carrying their souls away or simply telling their stories. By continuing on with Death through the pages of the story, the reader eventually "comes for" Hans right alongside Death. That is not to say that what happens to Hans as a result of his idea is not major. His idea is to send a copy of Mein Kampf to Max to hide behind should he ever need to take the train from one safe place to the next. The idea will lead in seven months to Max's arrival at 33 Himmel Street. Along with him will come many "complications, dangers, and vicious absurdities:" Hans will become further alienated from his adult children, he will see Liesel changed irrevocably by knowing Max, and he will embroil himself further than he ever expected to in the underground resistance to Hitler. For now, though, as Death points out, Hans knows barely more than the reader about how his plan will turn out. He is able to "enjoy" the triumph of his idea precisely because he does not know how everything will play out.

Mein Kampf is Hitler's manifesto, which brazenly laid out his anti-Semitic ideology and policies. Hans Hubermann has acquired this copy by joining the Nazi party. He has sent it to Max for this dangerous train ride because no one will suspect a reader of Mein Kampf to be Jewish. Death's comment, "Of all the things to save him," points out the irony that a Jewish man's survival depends on a piece of propaganda that instructs Germans in why and how Jewish people must be eradicated from society. The dark irony demonstrates that even in a totalitarian society, humans' compassion, creativity, and determination can never be fully stamped out. Hans, Max, and Walter Kugler have found a way to turn Hitler's horrible book against him.

Later on in the novel, Max further adapts Mein Kampf from a force for evil into a force for good. At first, he is afraid to let Liesel see the book. She has a young, impressionable mind, and the book is designed to turn people like her into Hitler's weapons. However, instead of keeping the book hidden from Liesel, Max tears it apart and paints over the pages so that he can turn it into a new book. This new book tells the story of "The Word Shaker," a girl who uses language not to manipulate people (as Hitler does) but to save them. The story roughly corresponds with the story of Liesel and Max's friendship. What Max creates is a palimpsest, or a book that is written on top of another book. In so doing, he takes the cruel world envisioned by Hitler and makes from the material something far more beautiful and compassionate. It inspires Liesel to write her own story in defiance of a government that aims to suppress free speech and dissenting viewpoints.

Luckily, Liesel spots the man outside and manages to injure herself so that she can go home in time to warn the Hubermanns. There is no time to find a better hiding place for Max, so he simply hides behind a curtain in the basement. They hope that some strategically positioned paint cans will deter the Nazi from pulling back the curtain. Just as Max hides in plain side, Hans decides that the best thing for the rest of them to do will be to act like a "normal" German family. He forces himself to play the role of a devoted father and indicates that Liesel and Rosa should get into character as well.

Liesel, Hans, and Rosa are nearly as terrified as Max. They know that Max's life will be in danger if he is found, but they do not know what will happen to them. They are breaking the law by hiding him, and the Nazis are not known for leniency in their punishments. This scene is unbearable not only for its suspense, but also for the dissonance between the characters' behavior and their feelings. Hans forces himself to wink at Liesel. Later, she forces herself to say a cheery goodbye to the Nazi. Hans's flip statement that, "I don't care if your knee hurts" doubles as an indirect order for all of them to shut down their feelings. It represents the way dissidents and vulnerable people in Nazi Germany often had to suppress real pain, both physical and emotional, in order to survive. Lying, acting, and appeasing regularly turned into a matter of life and death.

Liesel and the Hubermanns go through this harrowing experience with Max, but the terror of the scene is just a taste of what Max has been enduring for years. His journey to Himmel Street, for instance, when he hid behind a copy of Mein Kampf, required him to do a similar kind of acting. Rosa Hubermann falls apart once the Nazi leaves, demonstrating just how much of a toll it takes to hide in plain sight for any amount of time.

Hans seems about to say that "Maybe ..." a young girl should not see the torture and abuse that is about to be on display for all of Molching to see. It is impossible enough for him to process what he is about to witness, so it will surely be even more traumatic for a child. Then again, Hans reasons, "perhaps it was something she should see." Hans's ambivalence about how best to parent Liesel is tied up not only in the impossible task of parenting itself, but also in the fact that they are living through a historic moment. He does not yet have the perspective to know how this history turns out, or what difference it might make for a young girl to bear witness to the scene in the street. He simply has the feeling that it might be more important to show her the world than to protect her from it.

Death and, to some extent, the reader have the perspective Hans lacks. They know already that most of Himmel Street will not survive the war. Death knows that Liesel will go on to write about this moment in her memoir. Her testimony about the "anguish, torment, despair, wretchedness, desolation" will become part of the archive of stories about World War II—stories that give humanity the best possible shot at understanding what happened during this horrific chapter of history. Hans merely suspects that Liesel should stay, but Death and the reader understand better why she must stay.

Death is also being coy, foreshadowing Hans's impulsive and life-altering decision to bring bread to one of the starving Jewish men. The idea that "perhaps it was something [Liesel] should see" hints at the way Hans is about to catapult the entire family into a new reality. Hans's kindness draws a target on his back. It makes Himmel Street unsafe for Max any longer, it brings a new level of paranoia into the house, and it leads to Hans's forced military service away from home. It is important that Liesel sees his act of kindness so that she can direct her anger toward the right people. Because she stays in the crowd that day, Liesel sees that Hans is in the right, even if the consequences of his actions are terrible. She comes to understand on a visceral level that Nazis literally and figuratively beat the compassion out of people.

Dramatic irony has hung suspended between Liesel and Rudy for much of their friendship, as Liesel has kept her friendship with Max a secret from him. This secret was necessary to ensure everyone's safety, but it has kept Liesel and Rudy from being as close as they might otherwise have been. She always keeps him at an arm's length. In this scene, Liesel is finally able to be honest with Rudy about her life-changing friendship with Max. As Rudy looks at the book Max made her, he realizes that he is featured in it as a boy with "hair the color of lemons," meaning that Liesel has described him to Max in caring detail. This scene thus reveals not only Liesel's secret friendship with Max but also the important place Rudy holds in her life. It is a rare moment of vulnerability when his love for her is explicitly reciprocated.

However, just at the moment when the dramatic irony resolves and they are closer than ever, Death introduces a new secret that neither one of them knows. Rudy will die in just one month. The reader must bear this heartbreaking knowledge with Death throughout the rest of the novel. The dramatic irony is even more poignant because of the situational irony: Liesel and Rudy have finally started to sort out their relationship just in time to be torn asunder by circumstances beyond their control. Death reminds the reader that this kind of irony is all too common to the human experience, especially in times of war.

Frau Hermann is not really asking Liesel if they should go into the house through the door or the window. She is teasing Liesel about the girl's habit of climbing through her study window to steal books, as though Frau Hermann would not have let her in if she knocked on the door. Beyond the teasing, Frau Hermann is conveying the opposite of uncertainty about using the door. These two characters both have a history of pushing people away because of their survivors' guilt; they have struggled to believe that they deserve to ask each other for companionship. With this one joke and smile, Frau Hermann establishes that she and Liesel are done pushing one another away. From now on, they will never hesitate to knock on one another's door.

This is an example of a moment when, against all odds, characters in the novel find a way to access levity. In part, these moments give the reader a break from all the heaviness and cruelty in the story. More importantly, they are often instrumental to the characters' own survival. Liesel and Frau Hermann's friendship saves both of them in more ways than one. Frau Hermann gives Liesel the book that she is writing in when the Himmel Street bombing occurs; had she not been writing in the basement, she would have died. Frau Hermann also takes Liesel in after the bombing. The two of them coax each other out of their survivors' guilt and go on to live lives defined by more than the tragedies they have each endured.