Zusak Narrative Tension

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Of all three elements of narrative tension, uncertainty is the one that vividly stands out in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. In his book, Zusak writes parts where you become unsure of why he mentions certain things. For example at the beginning of the chapter “BESIDE THE RAILWAY LINE” Zusak writes, “First up is something white. Of the blinding kind. Some of you are most likely thinking that white is not really a color and all of that sort of nonsense” (Zusak 6). The book starts out talking about colors, each chapter contains a color, and everything in that chapter seems to all come back and revolve around that color. As a reader at the beginning of the story you are already trying to find out what colors represent and why Zusak put them into …show more content…
Her father explains to her that if she told anyone their secret about the man living up there, that there would be serious consequences. Zusak puts this in his story, “Toward the end, Hans Hubermann looked at Liesel Meminger and made certain she was focused. He gave her a list of consequences” (Zusak 203). The Father tells her about how the family might be taken away, and other different bad things. Zusak put this in his story to make you want to keep reading, you want to know what happens to the family, if they get caught, you want to know what would actually happen if they did get caught. You are unsure of the outcome of the event and as the reader you want to know the outcome of this particular event. I for instance want to keep reading because I want to know why exactly why this family would risk everything to keep a man in their house if something bad could possibly happen. I want to know his motives, and if they are great enough to put his family in harm. These are just three examples of uncertainty in The Book Thief, and although there are some examples of the other two types of narrative tension included in this book, uncertainty is the one that stands out the
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