The Book Thief: The Role of Embedded Narrative

The Book Thief:
The Role of Embedded Narrative

! Earlier this term, we discussed Embedded
  Narrative and how it tends to work within
  adolescent literature: As a hidden adult.
! The primary example we turned to was
  found in Blume’s Forever when
  Katherine’s mother gives her the
  following article: “What about the right to
  say ‘no’?” (102).

!   The article went on to list the following questions:
!   “1—Is sexual intercourse necessary for the
    relationship?
!   2—What should you expect from sexual intercourse?
!   3—If you should need help, where will you seek it?
!   4—Have you thought about how this relationship will
    end?”
What emotion surfaces in the reader when seeing this?

What emotion surfaces for Katherine?

What is the importance of the hidden adult here?

! The Book Thief, on the other hand, is a
  book that features numerous embedded
  narratives; in fact it is a book that nearly
  hinges on the presence of these
  embedded narratives and their effect on
  the characters, particularly Liesel.
! What would our reaction be to Forever if
  there were over 25 embedded narratives
  within it?

The Big Question:
!   What is the role of the embedded narrative
    in The Book Thief?
!   71—“She saw it but didn’t realize until later,
    when all the stories came together. She
    didn’t see him watching as he played, having
    no idea that Hans Hubermann’s accordion
    was a story. In the times ahead, that story
    would arrive at 33 Himmel Street in the
    early hours of morning, wearing ruffled
    shoulders and a shivering jacket. It would
    carry a suitcase, a book, and two questions.
    A story. Story after story. Story within story.”

!   74—“The day of the announcement, Papa was lucky
    enough to have some work. On his way home, he picked
    up a discarded newspaper, and rather than stopping to
    shove it between paint cans in his cart, he folded it up, and
    slipped it beneath his shirt. By the time he made it home
    and removed it, his sweat had drawn the ink onto his skin.
    The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to
    his chest. A tattoo. Holding the shirt open, he looked
    down in the unsure kitchen light.
    ‘What does it say?’ Liesel asked him. She was looking
    back and forth, from the black outlines on his skin to the
    paper.
    ‘Hitler takes Poland,’ he answered, and Hans
    Hubermann slumped into a chair.

!   381—“A voice played the notes inside her. This, it
    said, is your accordian.
    The sound of the turning page carved them in half.
    Liesel read on.
    For at least twenty minutes, she handed out the
    story. The youngest kids were soothed by her voice,
    and everyone else saw visions of the whistler running
    from the crime scene. Liesel did not. The book thief
    saw only the mechanics of the words—their bodies
    stranded on the paper, beaten down for her to walk
    on. Somewhere, too, in the gaps between a period
    and the next capital letter, there was also Max.”

!   444—450—The
    Word Shaker: Liesel
    —I almost scribbled
    this story out. I
    thought you might
    be too old for such a
    tale, but maybe no
    one is. I thought of
    you and your books
    and words, and this
    strange story came
    into my head. I
    hope you can find
    some good in it.

from Kidd’s Article
!   “Rather  than coming to terms with trauma, she
    says, we pass trauma along to the next person
    (here, the next theorist), keeping trauma
    unconscious and always moving. Caruth sees this
    transmission as an enabling sort of anxiety of
    influence (and in fact she thanks Harold Bloom in
    her book's acknowledgements). Such transmission
    is not just productive; it's also ethical, in her
    view…. For Caruth, the impossibility of sufficient
    response to and representation of trauma is itself
    traumatic, and inaugurates an ethics of collective
    memory and cultural work.”

!   Is it possible that the embedded literature in this novel, if not
    in all novels, serves a dual purpose? That it both creates depth
    and richness while simultaneously allowing an escape?

In this book, we have a story told by Zusak, but it is told by a very
prominent narrator, Death. Death, in turn, tells Liesel’s story through a
close 3rd person P.O.V. Within Liesel’s story we get snatches of the books
Liesel reads and the stories Liesel hears. Then, finally, we get the story
Liesel writes. It is through this book that Death knows her story so well.

Liesel has transferred her trauma onto Death, who prefers to be (or simply
knows enough about his profession to try to remain) unaffected.
    Zusak
       Death
          Liesel
              Books Liesel reads
                 Book Liesel writes

! Look at one of the following pages which features an
    embedded narrative, or refer to an embedded
    narrative to see the role that that particular narrative
    plays:
!   77, 86, 147, 181, 213, 223-226, 249, 279, 323, 328, 354,
    359, 398, 418, 433, 444-450, 473, 504, 512, 519,
    525-528.
!   What is the reaction to this embedded narrative?
    (Either in the novel or in your reading of it.)
!   In what context is it found?
!   What does it contribute to the depth of the book?
    Create an escape?

Dr. Tarbox’s Question:

! Transference of trauma from the text to
    the reader so that the reader becomes
    both witness and actor?
!   When Liesel learns Max’s story, does she not become
    both a witness and an actor within it?

from Kidd’s Article

!   “These stories are effective precisely to the degree that
    they capitalize on our conviction that historical trauma
    should be personal, in ways that are often surprising or
    unpredictable. Although I don't know enough about
    the genre, my sense is that historical fiction for children
    has become more than ever a metadiscourse of
    personal suffering that in turn demands pain from
    readers as proof of their engagement.” (Emphasis Dr.
    Tarbox)

A Dr. Tarbox Question: “What makes
      this subject/thesis/book important?
!     Liesel’s life
    The Gravedigger’s Handbook, The Word Shaker, The Standover
        Man, The Whistler, The Last Human Stranger, Duden
                            Dictionary

!     Our lives with The Book Theif: This is a narrative now
      embedded within our lives.

Dick and Jane, War and Peace, Love in the Time of Cholera, The
          Book Thief, Where the Red Fern Grows, etc.