Realism in comparitive

Realism of ‘The Book Thief’ compared to ‘Othello’

In the essay I will discuss the realism used in ‘The Book Thief’ by ‘Markus Zusak’ , ‘The Kings Speech’ directed by ‘Tom Hooper’ and ‘Othello’ by ‘William Shakespeare’. Throughout the text, Zusak tends to be quite realistic. He does so by using ‘Death’ as his narrator. Likewise for the time it was set in, ‘Othello’ seems quite realistic, however sometimes it can be quite unrealistic. At the time, the law system may not have been as strong as it is today and justice may have interpreted differently. I think people probably dealt with their problems more head on than they do now. Out of the three texts ‘The kings speech’ is probably the most realistic. It deals with a real life problem, something that happened and happens to people all the time.

The first moment I will talk about is when the Jews are paraded through ‘Himmel street’ and Hans decides to help a struggling old man. This is a very realistic scene as it’s factual. Things like this actually happened and stories like this were made. This is similar to when Bertie goes to Lionel’s home and apologises to him. This takes a lot for Bertie to do as he may have grown up believing that a king doesn’t apologies to anyone. Whereas in ‘Othello’ there is quite an unrealistic aspect as for some reason, beyond my knowledge Othello trusts Iago rather than investigating and questioning his right hand man Cassio. Cassio  is disregarded and his trust is lost just like the Jews in Nazi Germany.

Sometimes I may take things for granted however Liesel and Rudy in ‘The Book Thief’ don’t take anything for granted as they share licks with each other for a single lolly. This shows displays to the reader how desperate times really were in Nazi Germany during WWII. However in The king’s speech Bertie does not like to share. Lionel sits on king William’s seat and disrespects the crown. This is a very realistic moment as it’s not really something that someone does in the presence of the new king, however Lionel is a smart man, he does this on purpose to lighten the mood and show Bertie that he has a voice. This is similar to the small things that are depended upon in ‘Othello’ just like the handkerchief. Othello uses Desdemona’s loss of the handkerchief as a decisive moment, and finally identifies that Cassio and Desdemona must be sleeping together.

Using these key moments, we can identify how different aspects of ‘The Book Thief’ and ‘The Kings Speech’ are all quite realistic. However on the contrary, in ‘Othello’ we can see that there is a varying level of realism involved throughout the story. Some aspects of the two texts are very similar while others are complete and utter opposites.

Realism is an important aspect of all stories, however realistic the text may be. An audience should know wheather or not a text is meant to be realistic.