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The effects of guilt
The effects of guilt
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To begin, the inner struggle of guilt is shown in many characters in The Book Thief. Max Vandenburg is the Jewish man that Liesel’s foster parents agreed to hide in their basement to escape the Nazis. Max says to Rosa and Hans Hubermann about hiding in their basement, “You will not hear from me. I will not make a sound” (Max, 207). It writes that to live, “The price was guilt and shame” (Zusak, 208). The Hubermanns are in considerable danger due to hiding Max from the Nazis. In order to hide himself from the persecution of the Nazis in that time, Max must risk those around him and this is a source of immense guilt for him to struggle with. Another character to struggle with guilt is Hans Hubermann, Liesel’s foster father. Ironically, Hans experiences significant guilt over an action that could be considered virtuous. …show more content…
A soldier then whips them as punishment. This leads to panic over the expectancy of a Nazi soldier to come and look for “any evidence of Jew loving or treason.” (Zusak 400). Because of this, Max flees the house. Later, when no soldiers come, they realize, “it appeared that Max had left for no reason at all” (Zusak 400). Hans struggles with guilt because even though he tried to do something kind to help a starving Jewish man, it is because of this that it is his own fault for Max leaving unnecessarily. A final example of a character experiencing guilt is Michael Holtzapfel, a soldier injured in battle. He grapples with the guilt of surviving, and wanting to survive, when his brother dies from a battle injury. Michael’s mother, upon hearing that one of her sons is dead, is grief stricken, and this shows when she refused to go to the bomb shelter to safety during an air raid. Michael says, “how can she sit there ready to die while I still want to live? I shouldn’t want to, but I do” (Zusak
The Book Thief and The Devil’s Arithmetic both focus on the prejudice Hitler had on different types of people during World War II. Liesel and Hannah both lost someone they had dearly loved. Liesel lost Rudy and Hannah lost many members of her family. In a time of fearfulness, both had told stories to the people surrounding them. Although both were not seen as equal in the eyes of many during their time, I see them as courageous and brave heroes after what they underwent.
Strong feelings towards another can lead to imprudent actions. Throughout The Book Thief Liesel, Rudy, and Hans make impetuous decisions due to their strong emotions towards another. From reading this novel one can conclude that there is a very fine line between irrationality and bravery. Most of the decisions and subsequent actions made in the story could be regarded as brave but in truth many of these decisions were impetuous and ill thought out. In fact many of the characters subsequently came to this conclusion as well. The characters could have achieved more by executing logically planed actions instead of acting on the spur of the moment and jeopardizing their lives or the lives of others. It is amazing that even polar opposites emotions like love and hate result in the same irrational consequences as exemplified by Rudy, Hans and Liesel.
Hans can’t help to offer a piece of bread to one of the prisoners and is beaten along with the prisoner for this act of nobility. He is frightened that the Nazi will search his house and discover Max. That same night Max leaves Himmel Street. Hans is sent to war as his punishment and Alex Steiner is also conscripted for not permitting Rudy be part of a special training school. With Hans and Max gone, Liesel does her best to go on. She reads to the inhabitants of Himmel Street in the bomb shelter during air raids, robs food with Rudy, and helps Rosa who is devastated by Hans’s departure. The last book she steals is called “The Last Human Stranger” at this point she is frustrated and
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
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.
The feeling of guilt can be revealed through Hans’ character due to the death of his friend, Erik Vandenburg. For example, after Erik’s death, Hans felt responsible to visit his family. When he came back from the war, Hans told Erik’s wife, ““You know,” Hans explained to her, “he saved my life.” [...] “He—if there’s anything you ever need.” He
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?
“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”.
Often, most people have never enjoyed the feeling of being abandoned by your close ones, relatives, etc. because it causes their lives to become more challenging and difficult. Many aspects of someone being abandoned by someone, can often have a long term-effect on the person’s overall well-being. In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel, the main protagonist of the story, is a character that is constantly throughout the novel being abandoned by both certain circumstances, as well as the
In the Book Thief, both Liesel and Hans have very altruistic personalities. When the Jew’s march through Himmel Street to get to Dachau, everyone knows where they are going. They watch them march by, walking around them and staring. 75 percent of Hungary’s 600,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis, and only a few brave people tried to save just one Jew. (We Are All Bystanders page 4) These people risked their lives to shelter Jews, much like Rosa and Hans Hubermann. As the Jews march to Dachau, and the residents of Himmel Street stand and watch the Jews marching towards their death at the concentration camps, Death writes, “The book thief could do nothing but watch them back in a long, incurable moment before they were gone again. She could only hope they could read the depth of sorrow in her face, to recognize that it was true, and not fleeting.” ( ) Liesel feels helpless, like she can’t do anything. She longs to call out to them and help but knows that it would be worthless. A few minutes later, however, Papa takes action. Papa quickly grabs something from his paint cart and helps an old man who was struggling to walk and gives him some bread. Papa took action when no one else would. Papa pays the consequence, but in that moment, Papa displayed moral courage. Papa’s selfless personality let him reach out to help the man, even
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.
Guilt is a crippling emotion which either fades through over a long period of time or does not fade at all. In Nazi Germany two men, Max Vandenberg & Alex Steiner, one seeking safety, the other going to war, both suffer from guilt. Both of their actions led to a point where in which they regret what they have done. Max Vandenberg’s desperate situation leads him to the Huberman’s home slowly placing him in an emotionally destructive state, risking the family’s safety; Alex Steiner’s decision about not letting Rudy go to the Military school later on leads to Rudy’s death, and this is how guilt has clenched and victimized these characters, affecting their interactions with close friends & others, with both showing and dealing with their guilt
The dark side of human nature has always been very apparent in our lives. Just turn on the news or open a history textbook. One of the darkest stains of human history, the Holocaust, illustrates a particular lack of humanity. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak explores the unpredicted kindness human nature through a young German girl who discovers the power of words.
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.
German citizens had to endure a challenging lifestyle, presented by Adolf Hitler, of fascism, the holocaust, Jewish laws and propaganda during World War II. From 1939-1942, Nazi Germany affected the lives of Jews, Gypsies, Slavic people, and other groups living in Germany by getting rid of the undesirables, known as the Holocaust. Only Germans with the look of blond hair and blue eyes were even considered to live, only if he or she had no defects or disabilities, anyone else was sent to and killed in concentration camps. The Book Thief takes place in a town near Munich, Germany during this time of the holocaust. The novel focuses on the lives of the people and how they cope and deal with the immediate effects of WWII. It emphasizes the danger of hiding a Jew in a family’s basement, and how they are constantly paranoid of being caught.