The 3 colours white, black and red are predominant theme throughout the book The Book Thief, there are 3 main stages for each of the colours, white is represented more in the beginning of the book showing liesel’s innocence, black represents secrets and hiding in the middle of the book and finally red represents power and death in the end of the book.

White: White represents innocence, honesty and starting a new page in the book thief. In the beginning of the book Liesel begins a new life with a new family, her brother had just died and her mother had just left her even though she did nothing to deserve this, white represents her innocence in this situation, she was forced to start a new life similar to a blank white canvas ready to be decorated with the colours of life.white makes me think of purity, honesty and new beginnings.

Black: Black represents mystery and secrecy in the middle of the book, Liesel begins to see that things are not always what they seem, she finds out about jews and how they are forced to hide and learns that her mother might have been a jew, black also represents the lives of many jews around Germany such as max, hiding in basements and small spaces in poor conditions and complete darkness, black represents all the dark truths about germany and hitler and Liesel’s journey to finding them out. Death sees black a lot throughout the time when max hid in the basement in the dark and shadows away from the rest of the world. Black makes me think of secrecy and mystery, stuff that goes on in the dark.

Red: Red represents death and power in this book, When liesel’s town was bombed and everyone special in her life was killed deaths perception was drowned with red, red has always represented evil and death through out history mainly due to the fact that our blood is red and where there is death there is often blood. Red makes me think of power, blood and death. It is over ruling and commanding.

the nazi flag happens to use all 3 of the colours red white and black on it. These were picked for a reason with red being the most dominant one. Not only do the colours have great contrast in them Making a very visible and memorable flag but they have meaning behind them, the red meaning all power and commandment.