Death states that, “I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both” (Zusak 491). This book shows us human doing things that weren’t even imaginable before this point. Many people give into ideas that were lies. But, we also watch a few people go out of their way and sacrifice everything for a man they barely even know. They do everything they can to keep him safe and alive. They work harder, the get another job, and they even steal. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, death examines the ugliness and the beauty of humans.
During Markus Zusak’s book we observe the beauty of humans at many times. One of the most beautiful things a human does is when Max, the jew the Hubermanns are hiding from the nazis, gives Liesel a book that he made himself. But he says that “Now I think we are friends, this girl and me. On her birthday it was she who gave a gift to me”(Zusak 235). Max made this book for leisel by taking paint from the basement and painting over pages in Mein Kampf. He lets the pages dry and then he writes a story on them. He makes this book for Liesel because he can’t afford to buy one, and even if he could he can’t leave the house. But when he gives Liesel the book we also examine humans doing something so unbelievably nice. Liesel accepts max as a friend. Which in the long run will help Max out a lot, because he is locked in the basement and he can’t even go up stairs during the day. So someone who is there to talk to him, and someone for him to talk to will help him out. Throughout this book we watch their friendship grow. Liesel feels bad for Max because he is stuck in the basement so on a regular basis she will tell Max what the weather is like...
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We watch death explore the beauty and ugliness of the human race in Markus Zusak’s book The Book Thief. We watch as Liesel, Hans, and Rosa do everything they can to help out a group of people who were treated with such disrespect during this time period. This group, the Jews, were beaten for taking food that was given to them, and when they died no one would even care. But, these few people gave them food, a place to hide, a sense of belonging, and and a reason to live. They have to work day and night, and do everything they can. Even though people aren’t so beautiful at all times, there is still hope. As we have learned in this book that even when 99 percent of humans aren’t so marvelous there is still that one percent that is to delightful that it would touch anyones heart.
Works Cited
Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.
Max uses Mein Kampf as a kind of cover so people wouldn’t suspect that he was a Jew and he escapes to the Hubermann’s house as Hans promised to help the Vandenburg’s if they ever needed it as he was friends with Max’s father in the war and Max’s father saved Hans’ life. Liesel is curious but also scared of Max at first but they bond over the fact that they both have nightmares, have lost their families and are both “fist-fighters” Since Max is always hiding in the basement, Liesel begins to describe the weather to him and brought him snow where they had a snowball fight and built a snowman with Hans and Rosa. Soon after, Max falls ill and she brings him 13 presents, hoping that he will wake up and reads to him every morning and night. Max also begins to share stories with Liesel and for her birthday makes her a book called “The Standover Man” which is about his life and journey. Max also begins to have daydreams where he fights Hitler and Hitler always uses his words to excite the crowd and uses them as a weapon. Liesel and Rudy also begin to steal food with a group of
Throughout the Holocaust, the Jews were continuously dehumanized by the Nazis. However, these actions may not have only impacted the Jews, but they may have had the unintended effect of dehumanizing the Nazis as well. What does this say about humanity? Elie Wiesel and Art Spiegelman both acknowledge this commentary in their books, Night and Maus. The authors demonstrate that true dehumanization reveals that the nature of humanity is not quite as structured as one might think.
In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak the narrator is Death, who shows itself as sympathetic and sensitive towards the suffering of the world and the cruel human nature, through its eyes, we can get to know the heartbreaking story of Liesel Meminger an ordinary, but very lucky nine-year old German girl; living in the midst of World War II in Germany. In this book the author provides a different insight and observation about humanity during this time period from a German view and not an Allied perspective, as we are used to.
An individual's morals are rooted in their personal views which may be contradictory to the principles manifested by society. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, characters living on Himmel Street who neglect Nazi ideology experience love for each other and humanity, thereby living a contented life in harsh conditions. The different types of love which individuals on Himmel Street encounter from refusing to obey societal ideologies and expectations is formed by supporting those in need and developing relationships with those that society has degraded.
This realization, although suspected by the narrator for a long time, shows the true irony of Liesel’s thefts: that she never needs to steal them. When she steals her last book, The Last Human Stranger, she even takes a plate of cookies and leaves a note. Although none of these books are featured as heavily as her first few thefts, their titles reference parts of Liesel’s struggles such as her relationship with Max, her role in uplifting her community in the bunker, her continuing education, and her status being the only survivor of the final bombing. In conclusion, the books which Liesel steals are very influential in her development through the course of the novel, with the titles themselves references other parts of her life.
This is a story of courage, companionship, affection, survival, decease, and sorrow. This is Liesel’s life on Himmel Street, narrated by Death. There are two major themes in this book that are experienced at any point of time in everyone’s life. Those themes are “Survivor’s Guilt” and “Abandonment”. This book should be read by everyone. This book has a lot of themes that is beneficial for people in their lives. I feel that this book is interestingly written for an important piece of history.
In the novel The Book Thief, setting and point of view affect the theme and book a lot. The point of view of this novel is third person omniscient and a little bit of second and first person when the narrator talks about himself or to the reader. The setting of the story is Nazi Germany and it is based on a young girl named Liesel Meminger and what her life was like during this time. Her story is told by the narrator, death. Mark Zusak, the author, uses setting and point of view to express the theme of the novel because there was so much death happening, Liesel encountered him so many times, causing him to be able to tell her story; without this setting and the narrator, the theme story would have been different.
The Book Thief is a novel, written by the author Markus, about a young german girl named Liesel who suffers the death of her brother, and the separation from her mother while becoming part of a small town in Germany called Molching. The narrator in The Book Thief, Death, tells Liesel’s story while giving hints that show the paradox of humanity does exist in the context of the main character’s actions during WW2. For example, at the end part 9 when Liesel and her best friend Rudy witnessed a plane crash in the town of Molching after many bomb attacks occurred, both approached the devastating scene. When both of them discovered the man in the plane was still alive, Rudy had reacted, “Carefully, he climbed to the dying man. He placed the smiling teddy bear cautiously onto the pilot’s shoulder. The tip of its ear touched his throat. The dying man breathed it in. He spoke. In English, he said, “Thank you.” (Zusak 490-491). In other words, Rudy had given this suffering man trapped in a crashed airplane a teddy bear, to comfort him in his death. The paradox of humanity can be found in this quote because Rudy, not caring about the fact that this man was probably off to kill people of Germany, gave this man comfort and an act of kindness. We can see two different sides of human behavior in this particular scene. One human showing care to another human that had different intentions of doing good
"I am a result," claims Markus Zusak's Death in his novel The Book Thief (Zusak 8). This state of being for the persona commonly seen as malicious and destructive provides a good view of the unique image of Death presented in the novel. Far from the scythe toting, black hooded robe wearing Death of culture's common perception, the Death here is amiable, affable, and agreeable (1). He poses to the readers wishing to find out what he truly looks like to "find [themselves] a mirror" while he continues to narrate the tale. The being here hold much more of a resemblance to a beleaguered old man with an exhaustible deep supply of dry gallows humor. He is not taking joy in the deaths of humanity, or even causing them. He is the result of our dying. Someone (not just something) to clean up the mess we leave behind. And after millenia of witnessing humans at their best and worst, Death has developed a special love for them.
Liesel and her family were paying an old friend of Hans but also doing something that they knew they could be taken away for. “We can’t leave him here, the smell will kill us…and we can’t carry him out the door and drag him up the street either” (Zusak 329). Max, the Jew had become sick and they were not sure if he was going to make it. Trying to figure out a way to take out a Jewish corpse had become impossible to do without getting caught. “Does he know? Liesel thought. Can he smell we’re hiding a Jew” (Zusak 343)? Having Nazi soldiers come into their home was nerve racking because they had to hide Max but they had less than a minute. They were so worried that they might get caught because they could have been taken away from their house and their family. Hiding a Jew could scare anybody if they were not allowed to.
Death is a very well-known figure that is feared by many in all countries. He is suspected of being cruel, disturbing and all synonyms of horrifying. Death is inevitable and that is the most fearing aspect of his persona. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Death is made to seem or resemble humans. Effectively using the narration role, Death introduces a unique description and definition of colors in which he uses as a tool to effectively engage the readers to the events occurring throughout the book. He also demonstrates him personal and different experiences as well, mostly about soul gathering and the implications of WWII that have affected him. On the contrary to Death’s dead, appalling and scary nature that many interpret him to be during the book, Death shows many emotions and features to his personality that reasoning would declare otherwise. One of those feature would be the colors.
In The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, beauty and brutality is seen in many of the characters. Rudy, Liesel, and Rosa display examples of beauty and brutality often without realizing what exactly they are doing, because it is a part of their human nature. Zusak not only uses his characters, but also the setting of the novel in Nazi Germany to allude to his theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature. The time in which the novel is set, during World War II, displays great examples of beauty and brutality, such as the mistreatment of the Jews. As a result of this time period, the characters have to go through troubling times, which reveals their beautiful and brutal nature in certain circumstances. Zusak uses his characters and their experiences to demonstrate the theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature in the novel.
Although I have been fortunate enough to have a father and mother who love me a great deal, I still think the world can be cruel and mean. But meaner than we think? Every day we hear of some new tragedy that she speaks of, “the woman who drowned her children, the man who shot first the babies in her arms and then his wife, the teenage boys who led the three-year-old away along the train track, the homeless family recovering from frostbite with their eyes glazed and indifferent while the doctor scowled over their shoulders” (159), but every day we also hear of the good things.
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?
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.