The Word Shaker

I've decided to blog about "The Word Shaker" because of two reasons: 1) the entire story is written in metaphors and it could use some translating and 2) I'm not sure that what I think some of the metaphors mean is correct so please leave a comment telling me I'm wrong...

First item of business: the "strange, small man" who decided he would "part his hair the opposite side to everyone else, make himself a small, strange mustache [and] would one day rule the world"(pg 445). this man is obviously the leader of Nazi Germany: Adolf Hitler the Führer. Now that that's been cleared up, lets move on to where the book says: " 'Words!' He grinned. 'What?' But there was no reply. He was already gone. Yes, the Führer decided that he would rule the world with words. 'I will never fire a gun,' he devised. 'I will not have to.' "(pg 445). Well, we know that Hitler wasn't planning on having words marching down the streets "heiling Hitler" everywhere they went, he (or someone at least) was going to have to use a gun at some point, but Hitler planned on using his words to persuade people to use guns for him. I liked how "The Word Shaker" said that Hitler planted the words, cultivated them and watched them grow because in a sense, that's exactly what he did: he planted and cultivated his words and ideas through his famous speeches and watched them grow through the presses and through radio. He was dumping his "finest, ugliest words" (445) straight into the public's heads as the book explained. Of course people's heads weren't literally cut open and they weren't placed on a conveyor belt and they weren't just handed swastikas but essentially, Hitler was brainwashing them and convincing them to take a swastika and join him.

The book later says: "as the forests [of Hitler's words] grew, many people were needed to maintain them. Some were employed to climb the trees and throw the words down to those below. They were fed directly into the remainder of the Führer's people, not to mention those who came back for more."(446) I kept trying to tie this back into reality but I couldn't find a role these "word shakers" would've played in real life. The conclusion I came to was that the only reason Zusak (or Max, whoever you'd like) brought the word shakers into the picture was to say that the "skinny little girl" (Liesel) was the best word shaker in her region because she "understood the true power of words. They were the ones [she was the one] who could climb the highest…she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words. That's why she could climb higher than anyone else. she had desire. she was hungry for them"(446).


"One day, however, she met a man who was despised by her homeland, even though he was born in it… The tear was made of friendship-a single word-and it dried and became a seed, and when next the girl was in the forest, she planted that seed among the other trees. she watered it every day."(446) the girl: still Liesel, the man: Max. at first when I read this, I accidentally read: "she met a man who despised his homeland, even though he was born in it" and I thought of Hans and how his son criticized him for not loving his country. It took me a while before I realized that the man was Max. Perhaps the watering doesn't symbolize anything but to me, it meant that Liesel was caring for and protecting their seed of friendship and that when it sprouted, as long as she remained in that friendship or that tree, "A hundred and ninety-six soldiers could not make any impact on the word shaker's tree" (447). when Max climbed up the tree to Liesel, she told him "It wouldn't stop growing"(450). She was referring to Hitler's forest of words. Max then responds: " 'But niether would this.' The young man looked At the branch that held his hand"(450). The moral of the story, in my view at least, is that a friendship can outgrow anyone's forest of negative words and ideas,even if the friendship is one between a German and a Jew