During the horrid times of World War II, Death has been everywhere. He later explores the world of Molching through Liesel’s eyes and shows fascination and fear of humans. In Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief” shows a story of a girl named Liesel Meminger lived through her life in Molching under the care of the Hubermanns, Rosa and Hans, after losing her family. Once she learned to read with the help of Hans Hubermann, she began getting or stealing books, and would eventually write her own book, describing the experiences and reliving the memories with the others before their final moments. Even during the hatred-filled times in Liesel’s life, the people in her life showed her the brighter sides of Molching.
Even after losing her mother and brother, the story
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Death even states his fascination for humans with a heart, stating, “I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both (Zusak 491).” When there were Jews marching into Himmel Street, Hans was willing to give a Jew a piece of bread, despite having to face consequences. Later, both Liesel and her best friend, Rudy, dropped pieces of bread for the Jews to pick up. Besides the Jews, the pilot from the beginning was mentioned later on, who was dying from a plane crash. Before his soul gets taken, Ruby placed a teddy bear into his arms.
With every book Liesel receives, the books start to have a significance in her life. All from The Gravedigger’s Handbook to her own book. The first book she gets is the start of her closeness to Hans, who read and taught her to read using this book. The Shoulder Shrug is the second book she steals during a bonfire featuring a Jew protagonist, which showed her hatred for Hitler. Death even states, “It would inspire Hans Hubermann to come up
In the following lines from Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief, Liesel has been in attendance of a bonfire in which the Hitler Youth was required to attend. The bonfire was meant for burning books, posters and other propaganda that the Jews had owned. During the clean-up of the bonfire, Liesel seized her moment to steal her second book.
He understands Liesel’s experience more than any other human and later they become soul mates. Rudy Steiner is Liesel’s best friend. Rudy has a sensitive and compassionate side. He loves Liesel very much and will always be there for her. Liesel slowly adjusts to her new life, she is still plagued by the nightmares of her dead brother Werner. This book has many themes such as love, the books focus is on the characters who are learning to love in war times. The Book Thief is set in war times between the years 1939 and 1943 in Nazi Germany. The Holocaust and World War II are going on at the same time. The war shapes the characters’ lives and makes a huge impact on their life choices. Death lets us know early in the book that this is a very tragic and emotional book. We witness many deaths of innocent people. Death informs to us that many people we grow to love in this book will die. As the characters grow and change, their courage becomes a bigger factor in their lives. It becomes a life-sustaining attribute and a testament to their humanity. She later meets and becomes friends with a neighbor named Rudy, who is quite fond of the American athlete Jesse Owens and constantly bugs Liesel to kiss him. Hans had discovered that
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
...by American bombers and everyone but Liesel dies on the street. Liesel only survives because she was writing a book of her own, and was in the basement when the bombs struck. When she is rescued by the police, she rushes to find her parents and Rudy, but only finds them both dead. The story ends with her being adopted by Ilsa Hermann. Of course, this does not mean the story is over; there is an epilogue. Max survives the war and later finds his way back to Liesel, who rejoices when they finally meet. When Liesel finally dies, death takes her away from the others and shows her the book that she was writing when the bombs fell. She asks him if he understood the meaning of it, to which he responds with his own sage advice. When death takes her soul away for good this time, and takes one last look at the title of the book. The Book Thief by Liesel Meminger.
Inciting Incident: Liesel struggles with her reoccurring nightmares of her brother dying on the train. This is when her relationship with Hans starts to grow as he comes in and starts reading to her every night for comfort. She also meets her neighbor, Rudy Steiner, while playing soccer on the street.
The Book Thief written by Markus Zusak tells the story of a young girl in Nazi Germany named Liesel Meminger. Throughout the novel she encounters many issues and meets people that share the same problems she has. This includes abandonment and survivor's guilt. In the book the theme of survivor’s guilt and abandonment is shown prominently in characters Liesel, Hans, and Michael. Whether it is being the only one to a survive a bombing or leaving family behind they all feel toll of guilt and hurt as they struggle to get back normal lives.
In The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, the author portrays the theme, those who have suffered in the past have a great deal of courage because of it. Liesel Meminger was a young girl in Germany during World War 2. In the beginning of the book, Liesel watches her own brother die and her own mother gives her up to foster parents, the Hubermanns. She learns to read and write there and has so many ups and downs throughout. As Germany was in the midst of WW2 there began to be air raids, where Germany’s citizens had to begin to take cover. Air raid sirens were heard all throughout Liesel’s city of Molching and all residents of Himmel Street were to take cover in the Fiedler’s basement (one of the residents on Himmel Street) because they had the deepest basement.
Death has carried around Liesel’s book, and her words, “so damning and brilliant” that have given him a new view of the human race, “so ugly and so glorious” (550). Death notes that though he serves villains and disasters, there are moments and stories he allows to distract him, and The Book Thief is one of those stories. For Liesel, even as the words took her mother away from her, endangered her best friend, and isolated her when they were beyond her grasp, words were what connected her to the people she loved. Words were powerful enough to literally save her, in the end. The Jews knew “they could not be saved” and for one man’s sake, “just give him five more minutes and he would surely fall into the German gutter and die”(393). This event gives a suspenseful feeling to the reader to create sympathy for the people in harm’s way experiencing harsh predicaments. Not only were the Jews sacred so were the Germans. Hans was whipped for giving a man a tiny piece of bread. This fear instilled with the people is very prominent, making others not want to stand up and use their voices. Death has feelings because he so baldy wished he could have said “Im sorry child”, but he couldn't because “it was not allowed” (13). The fact that death cannot express himself, yet has to constantly experience sorrow creates a sympathetic effect. It makes the reader feel bad for him because
She feels the expected guilt from yelling at Ilsa Hermann and stealing her books, even though stealing is a loosely used term. Lisel knows that Ilsa is trying to help her but she still yells and emotionally wounds Ilsa. The guilt Liesel feels from that is normal. She also feels guilt that some Germans feel, from saying their Heil Hitlers when they don't support him. She can’t do anything to help all those imprisoned Jews, all she is able to do is falsely support Hitler. While Liesel deals with guilt differently than Michael it still creates a prominent result in her life story. Liesel is the main character of the book, Michael Holtzapfel is the better example of the prominence of the theme of
In the novel, The Book Thief, Death is the narrator of the story, and follows around the protagonist, Liesel Meminger, as she lives in Nazi Germany, and how her life changes when a Jewish man named Max Vandenburg shows up at her door, taking refuge in Liesel and her foster parent’s basement. Markus Zusak’s choice as Death influences many themes of the story, where if Liesel or an unnamed narrator wouldn’t have the same influence.
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.
We all see things differently depending on our perspective. That may be the only viewpoint we get without somebody else’s opinion. Markus Zusak shows us an interesting view on Death in his novel, The Book Thief. The Book Thief is a story of a young girl, Liesel, who grows up in Nazi Germany, narrated by Death. Death does not usually have a voice, and it is interesting that Zusak chooses Death as the narrator. Throughout the book, Death interrupts to give us background information, little details, or often the blunt truth. One of Zusak’s purposes in The Book Thief is to show a new perspective of Death, and how he may be different than how we expected.
Death identifies himself as being fair, in the sense that he comes for everyone, no matter how old, kind, or venerable they are, even though he wishes he didn’t have to come for those he cares for. He notices the colors of the sky with each person he takes away and urges the readers to consider what color the sky will be when he comes for them specifically. At first he tries to describe himself as someone who is detached from humans and tries to distract himself from his distressing job by noticing the colors of the sky. However, his true personality is revealed through his close bonds with some of the characters. The omniscient point of view also allows Death to describe each character’s thoughts and feelings in depth and interweave each character’s personal story into the big picture. Death chooses not to introduce the readers to Max, Hans, or Rosa until they are introduced to Liesel’s first. Through this technique, the readers learn to understand the background of where each character came from and why they did the things they did. For example, when Hans gave bread to a walking by Jew, the readers could associate this action with his previously mentioned anti-Nazi beliefs and arguments with his son over joining the party. Death is also able to show the characters’ growth and emotional change over the course of the story. When Liesel arrived on Himmel Street, she was scared and
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.
While in The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger, the protagonist seen through Death’s eyes changes through the pain of loss as well but Liesel has a whole different story of personal growth. Liesel comprehends the pain of loss of her father, mother and brother, and these experiences result in her actions and outlooks towards the other characters. When Liesel first arrives at the Hubermanns, her foster family, Liesel has a hard time trusting them or allowing herself to be vulnerable. Liesel comes off as being defensive, but as her foster family and new friends like Rudy and Max treat her kindly, she begins to open herself to the pain of others, while learning to express and alter her own pain and vulnerability. Liesel cares about justice in general, and feels frustrated and angry at the injustices spread by Hitler and war. Her experiences with loss give her motivation, and she is able to channel her anger to stick up for herself as well as others. “Liesel caught sight of him smiling with such absurdity that she dragged him down and started beating him up as well.” (Zusak, 2006, p.79), this is when Liesel beats up Ludwig Schmeikl, which she later saves him at the bonfire. This shows us how she changed from extreme disgust with him to caring enough to save his life. Throughout the novel, Liesel begins to realize that most people in life have experienced loss and pain, and she reevaluates