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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
The Book Thief is primarily set in the fictional town of Molching, Germany (near Munich) during World War II. Molching is like any regular German town in this era. It has streets like Grande Strasse, where rich people live in large houses with libraries, as well as streets like Himmel Street, where residents struggle to make ends meet. The social stratification is already severe when Liesel arrives there in 1939. It only grows more severe over time, as the war disproportionately strains the resources of the poor. Liesel, Rudy, and other children begin stealing from the rich and even from other poor people in order to stave off hunger. Still, many of the adults in the novel are convinced by Nazi propaganda that Jewish people, not rich government officials, are to blame for their poverty. In the later years of the war, they watch as Jewish prisoners are marched to nearby Dachau to be tortured and likely killed.
Zusak brings events from outside Molching into the story; for instance, he describes the Battle of Stalingrad. However, he always returns to Molching. This "regular" German town—which is situated right next to a concentration camp—allows Zusak to explore the morality of bystander culture. How did genocide become the casual backdrop of these characters' everyday lives? Many of the townspeople, such as Frau Diller, are so inundated in Nazi propaganda that they cannot see the ways they are being manipulated to ignore the class stratification right in front of them. Some characters, such as Alex Steiner, realize what is going on too late in the game, when they cannot find any way to fight back. At the same time, Zusak includes the Hubermanns as an example of people who do find a way to fight back, even if it means putting themselves at great risk. They are evidence that compliance with power is always, on some level, a choice to preserve one's own safety over all else. Eventually, they die not because they helped Max, but simply because they were in the way of some bombs. Molching's tragic end helps Zusak demonstrate that in the end, safety in war is an illusion for everyone.
