The Role Of Love In Markus Zusak's The Book Thief

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In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the reader is brought back in time to Nazi Germany and the family that lives in 33 Himmel Street. Using the interactions between the characters Zusak exhibits how love can bring pain and grief, but ultimately healing and peace. Living in Germany during World War II was a time strife with heartbreak and pain. In opposition to the pain was the healing and peace that was brought forth by the love of the characters family and friends.
In the novel, Zusak illustrates how love can bring pain and guilt. Despite it allowing him to live, Max Vandenburg feels guilt over leaving his family to go into hiding, “It tortured him. If only he’d turned for one last look at his family as he left the apartment. Perhaps then …show more content…

Two very opposite emotions that can come from a common source; love. The centre of many emotions, one of which is peace. The peace that comes from a long life surrounded by loved ones or a death that will reunite a person with them. The first of which is Hans Hubermann, who has a soul that that very few have. One that is content with the life that they have lived, enough to greet death when he arrives where his soul can move on “to other places” (532). When death takes Hans from the house, his soul whispers one name; Liesel, yet Hans allows death to take him anyway. This illustrates how Hans knows that one day he will be reunited with Liesel and is patient enough to wait for her time. While Hans Hubermann is waiting for his loved ones Frau Holtzapfel is ready to join hers. After the passing of both of her sons, she was a broken woman awaiting death. When he came for her “her face seemed to ask just what in the hell had taken so long” (530). Frau Holtzapfel’s love for her two children was so strong that she believed her life was no longer worth living. Her peace would come when she was in the beyond with her children. Unlike Frau Holtzapfel, Liesel did not wish for death, but she did greet it the same way as her papa. Liesel’s life was long after the war but full of love and “in her final visions, she saw her three children, her grandchildren, her husband, and the long list of lives that merged with hers. Among them, lit like lanterns, were Hans and Rosa …show more content…

Throughout the book he follows the war and what happens in its wake. Not only the expected pain, but surprisingly the healing and the peace that arise from a time riddled with agony. In conclusion, Hitler’s regime destroyed thousands of lives, from the Jews in concentration camps, to soldiers on the battlefield and finally the average german citizen, but one thing he was never able to do was erase their capability to

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