Death is the action responsible for taking a human life. For this action to occur there must firstly be some other action responsible for the loss of it. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, death, the action of life’s ending, is not only developed as a key character but is also the story’s narrator. The way that this naïve, ageless and fictional character is presented to us among an otherwise realistic believable story, exposes to us this idea that readers may not have apprehended.

Death’s character proves to readers that death is not what should be feared but rather the human forces responsible for causing death. “Even Death has a heart” Death narrates. Death having a heart is oxymoronic as a heart is the beating symbol of life. It is also personification as it is giving human like features to something non-human. This personification helps us to understand and relate with Death as though he is an actual person. The alteration of reality allows us to look at the aspect of death from a new angle. In the Book Thief this new angle is that death is feared when really it is the cause of death that should be feared, in this case the Nazi Party and Holocaust. We can relate this to our lives by