The story of a childhood and the end of innocence is primarily seen in “Markus Zusak’s” book, The Book Thief. The book takes place in Nazi Germany during World War II and follows a young girl named Liesel Meminger as she witnesses death and destruction. Over the course of the novel, Liesel must face the harsh realities of the violent world in which she epitomizes childhood. Another major element of growing up, presented in The Book Thief, is Liesel’s loss of innocence. Normally, a child is innocent and knows nothing about pain and evil in the world, and so is Liesel at the beginning of the novel. But then, Liesel begins to learn that the world can be cruel indeed. Liesel sees how people are persecuted by the regime and how the place where her friend lived before turned into a post-atomic wasteland. Also, Liesel witnesses, how the Nazis burn books which were important to her like nothing else, and learns that words have power and that it is important not to surrender to the oppressor. …show more content…
Liesel has to choose between submitting to the orders of the Nazi government or rejecting humanity. This leads her towards the concepts of compassion, empathy, and the reason why human life is strong. Liesel befriends Max Vandenburg, a Jewish man who the Hubermanns are hiding in their basements. Max teaches her the importance of love, friendship, and the joyful nature of the
In Markus Zusak’s novel, the book thief, Liesel Meminger is surrounded by death and fear as that is the norm in the 1930’s. Liesel is a strong young girl who has been deeply affected by her brother’s death and her mother leaving her and finds comfort in ‘The Grave Digger’s Handbook’, the book she stole at the site of her brother’s burial. Throughout the novel Liesel finds comfort in other books and reads them to escape the terrible reality that is Nazi Germany. Together with books she overcomes obstacles she wouldn't have been able to do without them
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.
Liesel experiences abandonment throughout her life, and the novel during a suppressed time in World War II Germany. Through her experiences Liesel’s learns to equate abandonment with love knowing that circumstance have forced her loved ones to leave her.
In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger, an orphaned little girl living in Nazi Germany, evolves partly through her numerous literary thefts. At her younger brother’s gravesite, she steals her first book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, which teaches her not only the method to physically bury her brother, but also lets her emotionally bury him and move on. The theft of her next book, The Shoulder Shrug, from a book burning marks the start of Liesel’s awareness and resistance to the Nazi regime. As a story with a Jewish protagonist “who [is] tired of letting life pass him by – what he refer[s] to as the shrugging of the shoulders to the problems and pleasures of a person’s time on earth,” this novel prepares her both for resisting the
Children are considered as Gods, pure and innocent. Children are new in this vicious world and have yet to discover the world and witness life and this is what makes children innocent. Children have done no wrong as they barely have entered the world. The novel ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel displays how a child can be rapped of their innocence. ‘Night” is about a young boy named Eliezer and his eye awakening life in World War 2. Being a Jewish teen, Elie lost his innocence for a chance of survival due to the major traumatizing events Elie witnessed. It took a great toll on him, not only physically, but emotionally and mentally. Through what Elie has seen he was undoubtedly stripped of his purity.
Guilt is a prevalent theme throughout The Book Thief. Liesel endures guilt multiple times, when she steals laundry money from Rosa, gets Max sick, verbally attacks Ilsa Hermann, and experiences the guilt of surviving. All of these acts caused Liesel to experience some sort of guilt which later causes her to perform questionable tasks.
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.
Max showed her a side of the world that was technically forbidden for her German roots and family. Either way, her family housed a jewish person. Which was illegal at that time and punishable by death. Not a topic to take lightly. Anyways, Max wrote Liesel a book called “The Standover Man”. A quote from the book makes his story ironic. “It makes me understand that the best standover man I’ve ever known is not a man at all…” (Zusak, page 205, line 5-8) This is ironic because Liesel could be a man with her guts, but she is different. She doesn’t put up with any crap from anyone (but her parents of course), but she can also at the same time be very caring. She is as mean as an angry bull, but as nice as a caring mother with her newborn child. It’s kind of hard to think of any female being like that but that is how Liesel is
“I am haunted by humans” (Zusak 550). The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is about the horrors of World War II. Liesel and her family help out an old friend by hiding a Jew. Liesel also steals her first book when she at her brother’s funeral. Liesel Meminger’s remarkable actions like feeling good when she steals a book and her family hiding a Jew help demonstrate why Death is “haunted by humans”.
“The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” This quote is from the famous diary of Anneliese Marie Frank; a holocaust victim and a modern time hero. In Markus Zusak’s novel, The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger is surviving through World War II just like Anne Frank. Although their circumstances are vastly different, both girls learn that the person they wish to become must be created through their own experiences and trauma. Narrated by Death, The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a nine-year-old German girl who has been given up by her mother to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann in the small town of Molching in 1939. In the novel, Liesel’s greatest mountain is her internal conflict with herself and the propaganda
Children have often been viewed as innocent and innocent may be a nicer way to call children naive. Since children’s lives are so worry free they lack the knowledge of how to transition from being a child to becoming an adolescent. Their lack of knowledge may be a large part of their difficulties growing up, which could be a few rough years for many. In books like the boy in the striped pajamas the story is told from the point of view of a little boy, this way we get a full view of how innocent he is. In this book the writer shows the reader first hand how a child viewed the holocaust and how his innocence cost him his life. Then in books like the perks of being a wallflower Charlie is a teen whom is struggling with the transition from being a child to becoming an adolescent. In this book the writer gives a first hand look at how difficult it can be to transition into an adolescent. Charlie has many difficulties in this book; he is in search of his identity and how to fit in.
One of the most unforgettable genocides to occur was the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews, along with gypsies, homosexuals, and communists, were killed by Hitler’s Nazi regime. It is very common for authors to have their literature’s central idea be about the Holocaust. The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak, is about a German girl, Liesel, who lives in Nazi Germany and faces the inescapable pains of growing up in a time of war. Her emotional journey is one that begins with a journey. Zusak incorporates the events that occurred during the Holocaust in the book in order to show the reality that Liesel and everyone she loved had to face.
Everyone is obviously different, but the personal qualities of a person and external situations that are occurring in the world around them can create similarities between people who have vast differences. In The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, this idea is very clearly shown through the lives of Liesel and Max. Although they come from vastly different backgrounds, the situations around them and their personal qualities reveal similarities between their lives. In The Book Thief, Max and Liesel’s lives have much in common, such as their love of literature and the impact on their lives as a result of Nazi persecution. However, they also differ in many aspects of their lives such as the degree of freedom that they were able to exercise and their attitudes toward life.
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.
As time evolves, so do the words that are essential for our everyday survival. The most obvious difference between humans and animals is our ability to master the art of speech. Often, people will say the “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, a simple nursery rhyme that helps ease a bullied child from abusive words and taunts. But does that really help cure the emotional pain? Words can illuminate and motivate the minds of people but can also shadow their self-esteem through psychological trauma. In The Book Thief, we see how fundamental words were to shape the reality of millions of people caught in the fire of World War II.