Sunday, May 17, 2009

"A small announcement about Rudy Steiner: He didn't deserve to die the way he did" (241)

I found this excerpt interesting because it is Death saying that someone didn't deserve to die the way they did; it is Death's decision on whether Rudy should die or not, and it seemed interesting that Death felt that Rudy didn't deserve to die. This excerpt is also an example of Death's inconsistency in storytelling because he jumped forward in time and gave something away. Death just decided to tell us that in the end Rudy is going to die, even though chronologically we haven't gotten that far yet.
Posted by at

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 17, 2009 at 6:41 PM

    I agree with you, Kiley, that the line in the title of your post is interesting, but I disagree with you that Death decides "on whether [people] should die or not." From my interpretation, Death collects the souls of the people who have died and does not make the decision of whether or not those people die.

    I was wondering, was the point of this post to show an example of Death's inconsistent chronology?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 17, 2009 at 6:55 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 17, 2009 at 6:58 PM

    More on the interesting line...It seems to be very occasional that Death thinks a person doesn't "deserve to die the way [they] did". This line reminds me of Death's interest and curiosity in Liesel because of its rarity that Death notices a few of the millions of souls he collects or "survivors...[he] can't stand". I also thought there were a few interesting points overall in the chapter ("The Floating Book (Part I)"). Death lets the reader know from part of his distorted timeline that Rudy dies with a bomb and finally gets his kiss from Liesel. I thought the chapter began and ended in a striking way. The beginning was almost another story of Liesel and Rudy, but ends abruptly and with "Poor Rudy" (241). I think Markus Zusak wants his readers to have feelings for Rudy and like Rudy's character, then, "economically", have Death tell the readers about Rudy's death. I think the ending of this chapter with "You see? Even death has a heart" (242) is another example of death's casual, matter-of-fact manner. It is almost a friendly tone to have the readers know it is alright to believe Death and what he says.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousMay 18, 2009 at 8:26 PM

    Back to your first comment, Kristen, the post has two points: a) The fact that Death didn't think Rudy deserved to die the way he did and b) To show Death's inconsistency in the story's chronology. I just thought that Death's inconsistent chronology was interesting because I've never seen that in a book before.

    ReplyDelete
  5. KatiaMay 19, 2009 at 4:23 PM

    I agree with Kiley on how Death decides to give away a lot of things a long time before it happens. The good thing is that Death doesn't give away on how Rudy dies or when he dies, so it has two advantages for the readers:
    1) The book is not ruined for them.
    2) It makes the story more interesting because it gets you wondering about what event led to Rudy's death.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)