Foreshadowing

Liesel standing over her dead best friend—Rudy Steiner.

Markus Zusak used lots of foreshadowing in, his book, The Book Thief. In the prologue the narrator—Death—told us primarily what the story would be about: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. He also told us that “it’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors—an expert at being left behind,” which led us to believe that many people would die but one would survive. In addition, throughout the story, Death foreshadowed some of the characters deaths. For example the narrator foreshadowed Rudy’s death by saying “He didn’t deserve to die the way he did.” I like the way that the author used foreshadowing because not only did it give an introduction to the book and what it would be about, it also made me want to keep reading to figure out how the people would die and how the story would come to an end.