The Power of the Word: Hitler as Double Coin in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief
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Date
2020-06
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Abstract
Our world comes to witness a new concept of power away from its tangible and solid form; a
power that is indoctrinated in the name of words. Even the controversial character of Adolf
Hitler who seems to be as a redeemed subject, his name is linked to evil, and proves to reveal
renewed denotations. The fact that a single man could gather the minds of a nation in one
melting crucible using his speeches to store contagion among masses, lead us to question the
existing relation between language and thought, and how language could consequently affect
psychology. Moreover, considering the nature of language and how it could be a means of
manipulation evokes an interrogation mark about the stability language. In this context and
since literature pictorializes to a certain degree reality, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief' will be
analyzed to examine the aforementioned assumptions regarding Hitler as a double coin in this
dystopian work of fiction. Therefore, to analyze the case study in hands from different angles,
a plethora of literary theories would be used starting from Psychoanalysis, New Historicism
with Michel Foucault's theory the Panopticism, and Deconstruction.
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Keywords: Language, Power, Hitler, Crowd, Fictional-Narrating, Death, Deconstructive, psychoanalysis, New Historicism, Gustave Le Bon.