Death

The motif of death and learning to accept it is the most important theme of the novel. By showing Ziva’s inherent fear of death the author subverts her beliefs by showing how death is not cruel, but necessary for life to flourish.

In the early parts of the novel, the author shows death in how many readers might see it: dark, cruel, and violent. When Ziva first sees the Angel of Death in the thieves camp, she describes him as something that “looked like a man, but.. it had wings. Six of them. And eyes that blinked and rolled within the shadow itself, as though they had punched holes in it” (109). Later on, the Milcham supports Ziva’s belief that Death is cruel because “He doesn't care for cures or health. He will take a person anyway” (242). This fear of death is something that most...