Color in the prologue - relation to setting

[ethanashbrook]

In the first pages of The Book Theif, the author focuses on the colors of various destinations that Death visits. For example:

"Next, is a signature black, to show the poles of my versatility if you like. It was the darkest moment before the dawn. This time, I had come for a man of perhaps twenty-four years of age. It was a beautiful thing in some ways. The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both its lungs." (Doerr 9).

Here, the color of black is chosen in relation to the color of the sky (something Death often returns to) and the smoke coming from the plane. Could there be any other significance between this setting and the color black? What about other settings and their respective colors?

[Sara S.]

On page 11, Zusak writes, "As with many of the others, when I began my journey away, there seemed a quick shadow again, a final moment of eclipse-the recognition of another soul gone. You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies. I've seen millions of them. I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember." Here, death draws a connection between the death of the pilot and the blackness of an eclipse. In addition, another scene described by a color is when Liesel's brother, Werner, dies, in the snow outside of a stopped train. Here, Death uses white to describe the setting. In this scene, the color white could be used to describe the snowy day. "It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow," writes Zusak on page 6. The pale shade could also be used in relation to the dead boy--a colorless corpse killed by the frost.