Difficulties In The Book Thief

Throughout life many people face difficulties. Depending on the person’s strength some will get through tough times, but some will fail to overcome them. Two books where characters have to face many challenges include: Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Book Thief. These two stories deal with people overcoming the difficulties faced throughout everyday life. Some difficulties include racism, religious discrimination, and dealing with others’ cruelness or kindness. Examples from these books prove that the characters have challenges throughout the stories to overcome. In the face of adversity what causes some individuals to fail while others prevail?

In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God the main character Janie returns back to her hometown

Eatonville, Florida after being away for some time. All the townspeople gossip about what might have happened to Janie when she moved away. Janie clears up all the gossip and shares her story with the curious group. Janie was raised by her grandmother after her mother ran away. As Janie got older her grandmother wanted her to have a good life, so she forced Janie to marry a wealthy, older farmer, Logan Killicks. Janie was miserable when married to him. She left Logan for another man, Joe Starks. They get married and open up a store in town. Throughout their marriage Janie learns that Joe doesn’t treat her right, he treats her like an object. Janie begins to hate Joe, and she insults him in front of the whole town. Soon Joe becomes very ill, and Janie doesn’t talk to him for months. On Joe’s deathbed Janie goes to see him and once again insults him for the way he treated her. Then Joe dies. After Joe’s death Janie meets Tea Cake, a much younger man. Janie and Tea Cake marry and move to Jacksonville. Tea Cake steals from Janie, but she forgives him. Tea Cake gets bitten by a rabid dog. He gets ill, when he is sick he becomes convinced that Janie is cheating on him, and he starts firing a pistol at Janie. Janie is forced to kill him to save her own life. Then she is put on trial for murder. The all-white, all-male jury finds her not guilty. After all these troubles she returns to Eatonville where gossip fills the town. The townspeople believe Tea Cake left her and took all of her money. Which is not the case, but she now feels at peace with herself.
At a young age when Janie still lived with her grandmother they stayed in a small house in the Washburn family’s backyard. They were a white family. Janie and Nanny are black. Janie would play with the Washburn children as a child. She never understood she was black until they took a picture together, and she saw that she was different than the other kids. Janie says “So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark chile as me. So Ah ast, ‘Where is me? Ah don’t see me.’” (Hurston 9) This is an example of Janie prevailing through her challenge of finding out that she was different than the other children. She accepted the fact that she was different. Though it was challenging for her to understand, she accepted herself for who she really was.
When Janie and Joe move to their new town and Joe becomes the mayor the townspeople praise him. Joe gives a speech to the people, after his speech the townspeople ask Joe to let his wife speak, but Joe says she isn’t capable of that. Joe states “Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but muh wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home.” (Hurston 43) Joe is treating Janie like an object which soon Janie got tired of. Joe’s behavior caused their marriage to fail. Janie was the strong one because she knew her worth, and she left Joe. It was tough for her to realize she had another failed marriage, but Janie would rather be respected than treated like an object.
In the other novel analyzed The Book Thief, the narrator, Death tells the story.

The main character Liesel, known as “the book thief” is who Death is looking over. Liesel, her mother, and brother are on a train to Munich. On the train ride her brother dies. She and her mother get off the train to bury him. The first book Liesel steals is from the gravediggers. They continue the journey to a town called Molching, where Liesel will be raised by foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel adjusts to her new home life. Hans teaches Liesel how to read. The war is escalating in Germany. The town holds a book-burning to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. That’s when Liesel steals another book from the flames. Liesel’s job is to deliver laundry to the Hermann family. The Hermanns’ have a library full of books. Liesel is allowed to read them in the study. Meanwhile, a German-Jew named Max needs help, so he seeks out the Hubermanns. Max hides in the basement, so he is safe from the Nazis. Liesel begins stealing books from the Hermanns. The Nazis parade the Jews through the town of Molching on their way to the concentration camp for everyone to see. Liesel is given a blank notebook to write her own story. One night the neighborhood is bombed. Hans, Rosa, and the rest of the neighborhood is killed. Rescue workers find Liesel under the rubble. She leaves behind her finished book, called The Book Thief. Death, who has been watching, rescues the book. Liesel ends up living with the mayor

and his wife. Once the war is over, Max returns and finds Liesel. Liesel eventually grows old and moves to Australia. She starts a family and lives to an old age. When Death finally comes to take her soul, he shows her the book she wrote years ago.
At the beginning of the story when Liesel, her mother, and her brother are traveling to Munich on the train they don’t realize what the future has in store for them, other than the fact they are to be living with foster parents soon. In part one of the book “With one eye open, one still in a dream, the book thief--also known as Liesel Meminger--could see without question that her younger brother, Werner, was now sideways and dead.” (Zusak 20) This is the first problem that Liesel has to overcome. Her brother dying, and having to start out a new life with a new family. Liesel took some time to adjust to her new life. She was shy at first, but soon she warmed up to her new family because she knew she had to overcome the death of her brother. She no longer has him in her life, so Liesel has to find the strength to face life’s challenges alone.
There was a bombing in a town near Molching. The Nazis had to go down each neighborhood in Molching to inspect basements to see if they met the requirements to be a safe bomb shelter. The Hubermanns were on edge knowing their hidden Jew was in the basement. The narrator explains “They listened to Nazi footsteps in the basement. There was the sound of measuring tape. Liesel could not ward off the thought of Max sitting beneath the steps, huddled around his sketchbook, hugging it to his chest.” (Zusak 344) This was an intense moment in the book knowing Max could have just given up and been taken by the Nazis, but he kept his faith and stayed quiet under the basement steps and remained unnoticed to the Nazis. This could have ended badly for both Max and the Hubermanns but they got through it. Even though hiding a Jew was against the law, the Hubermanns would rather risk themselves to keep Max safe from the dangerous Nazis.
The Nazis paraded the Jews through the town of Molching on the way to the concentration camp. All of the citizens watched as the malnourished people passed. Liesel felt so much sadness for these Jews:
As she watched all of this, Liesel was certain that these were the poorest souls alive. That’s what she wrote about them. Their gaunt faces were stretched with torture. Hunger ate them as they continued forward, some of them watching the ground to avoid the people on the side of the road. Some looked appealingly at those who had come to observe their humiliation, this prelude to their deaths. Others pleaded for someone, anyone, to step forward and catch them in their arms. No one did. (Zusak 392)
No one cared about the Jews in the town but they all continued to walk. They all got through the embarrassment. They had to face the cruelness that the Nazis gave them. Jews had to face the horrors of the concentration camps. Some weren’t strong enough to make it through the horrible camps, but others prevailed all the way through the war and made it out alive after the faced such horrible living conditions that no human should have to face.
These books had some similarities.

Both of the characters faced difficulties that they overcame. Which came to answer the guiding question “In the face of adversity what causes some individuals to fail while others prevail?” well the main characters both prevailed through their challenges. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie overcame the challenges she faced with her three husbands. In The Book Thief Liesel overcame moving away from her mother and the death of her brother all while the war was going on in Germany, and she had to protect those around her like Max. These main characters are both strong individuals that overcame many challenges throughout the book. When faced with challenges how will one react? The strong individuals that relate to Janie, Liesel, and the Jewish people will prevail through tough times. Those that are weak will fail during challenges in

life.