Task 1: What do EACH of these colours represent in these pages? What do they show is taking place? What atmosphere or feeling is created around the characters and events through this colour imagery? What do the colours make you think of?
Black – Black is well represented throughout this text for example when we the quote. “Next a signature black” Hitler created a revolutionary symbol that left a mark on the world forever. Black in my opinion the perfect colour for this brought darkness, a depressing time for humanity.
Red – Red in this text obviously the colour choice of blood shed. At the end of the book after liesel’s town was bombed, blood of her loved ones flooded the street, evidently death saw boiling thick red skies everywhere
White -In this text for me white had an amazing perspective of innocence Liesel is young, travelling to a strange place for an unknown reason. Her brother has died, which she could not control and she does not have enough experience of the world to make entire sense of his death and her circumstances; she is just broken.
Task 2: Death says, “When I recollect her (Liesel, the “book thief”), I see a long list of colours, but it’s the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the most…Red, white, black. They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.” Consider the Nazi flag during World War Two and its construction. How does this reference to colour relate to the image of the Nazi flag in World War Two? Why would this image define so much about Liesel and her experiences in the text?
The Nazi German flag defines a lot of Liesel for me not because of the symbol it creates but I find the colours of the flag really do represent her as a person throughout the text. the red backround represents for e the blood that has been shed all around Liesel’s life with Hans, Rudy, Rosa and even her own brother. The bland white showing the cold wintery snow when Liesels story started when her brother met death when he stared into her eyes when liesel brother passed. Then the center with the swastika representing the darkness of World War 2 when Liesels story is based.
Task 3: Use the additional references to white, black and red in the text: the
description of Frau Hermann, Rudy covering himself with charcoal, Max
hidden in the darkness and the fire burning books. Select relevant
quotations and explain what these colour references show in these sections of the text.
For me personally I find black was well presented in this as it shows a white blond haired, blue eyed German boy Rudy doesnt care about the fact that Jessie Owens is black his only intent was to be like an inspiration. Black was well presented in this as it shows even full German people have respect for other races and not judging them on the colour of Jessie Owens skin not like what Adolf Hitler did at the Olympics.