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“ Imagine smiling after a slap in the face”: The Literary Reconstruction of Forgotten Communities of Resistance in Markus Zusak’ s The Book Thief( 2005)
Athena Harvey, PhD in English Literature
Abstract
This paper considers Markus Zusak’ s 2005 novel The Book Thief as a literary reconstruction of a covert community narrative. Within this community, ordinary German citizens engage in what James C. Scott( 1990) terms‘ hidden transcripts’ through the concealment of their quiet resistance to the hegemonic ideology of the Nazi Party behind public performances of conformity. Specifically, this paper explores how the Hubermanns stage political allegiance( through displaying the Nazi flag, attending rallies, and adhering to routine) not only in an attempt to conserve their survival, but also to circumvent the panoptic power of the Nazi state and conceal their acts of civil disobedience: namely, their harbouring of a Jewish man, Max Vandenburg. Furthermore, it also considers how the novel’ s metafictional elements( such as Liesel’ s written account and Death’ s subsequent retelling) position historical testimony and storytelling as forms of resistance against oppression through the posthumous dismantling of the notion that the Nazi state had complete, uncontested control. By applying Scott’ s framework of‘ hidden transcripts’, this paper examines how Zusak’ s narrative both preserves and reimagines these hidden histories, complicating traditional binaries of victimhood and complicity, as well as contributing to broader discussions on civil resistance, memory, and the ethics of survival.
Introduction
During the eighteenth-century, Jeremy Bentham sought to revolutionise surveillance systems through the development of an architectural concept he called the