Guilt Of Living In The Book Thief By Markus Zusak

In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, suffering can be seen throughout the book.”Individuals can endure great suffering if they have something to live for”. There are various types of sufferings presented in the book like physical and emotional. Max Vandenburg a Jewish man who hides in the Hubermann’s basement and the conditions and distress he had to go through to stay hidden from the Nazis. Also suffering is shown when Max had lost his family was very miserable and cruel.

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

Guilt is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense; real or imagined, and affects normal people everyday at various stages of life. When loved ones and those that are close pass away, it is not uncommon for those left behind to experience feelings of accountability known as survivor’s guilt. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, survivor’s guilt can be identified in three main characters: Liesel, Max, and Hans, and creates profound emotional and behavioral effects on these characters throughout the novel. The debut of survivor’s guilt appears after the death of Liesel Meminger’s little brother, Werner.

Part One: Compare and contrast this persona of Death with the familiar personification of the Grim Reaper. How is Death from The Book Thief like the Grim Reaper, and how is he significantly different?

This can be clearly seen first of all when Michael commits suicide. “JULY 24, 6:03 A.M. The laundry was warm, the rafters were firm, and Michael Holtzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff. Michael Holtzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for wanting to live. Michael committed suicide parting g himself from his mother, his loved one. He did this because of his guilt, because of his desire to live. This shows Michael dealt with his guilt by killing himself because that was the only way he could he could escape the ache in his chest and his desire for life. (pg. 495) My second piece of evidence is about when max left the Huberman’s. “He left. ‘Max?’ But he did not come back. He had walked from her room and silently shut the door. The hallway murmured. He was gone.” (pg. 258) This shows me that Max finally let go of his need to survive. He left the Huberman’s because he loves them and he knew he put his family in danger by being with them. This shows he is dealing with his guilt and has just accepted that he will die someday. That shows that he has finally come to terms with his guilt and has overcome it. Both Max and Michael deal with their guilt in different ways, but they both left their families even if it might not have been in the best way it shows Max and Michael grew as characters and thought of others more than just their

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, shows the theme statement of surviver's guilt can be dealt with through kindness and friendship, and is proven in how characters manage the guilt by assisting the living. To start, Hans' life is

Hanna takes the blame for other crimes to hide her illiteracy and Michael later says he wishes he had spoken out about it to the judge to help her, but he didn't. When Hannah is in prison she commits suicide after educating herself about the legitimate horrors of the war. Her suicide acknowledges her understanding of what she had done. After Hanna commits suicide Michael asks “In the first few years after Hanna’s death, I was tormented by the old questions of whether I denied and betrayed her, whether I owed her something, whether I was guilty for having loved her. Sometimes I asked myself if I was responsible for her death.”CITE Even after he no longer had to deal with the guilt he felt because of his past romances with Hanna, after he knew everything she did in the war, after she confessed completely and was sent to prison Michael thought he could be the reason she had ended her life. Michael is the type of person to let people take advantage of his emotions and his kind personality, usually leaving him feeling guilty and sad. This develops the allegory of Michael as a symbol of the younger generation of children in Germany after the war. They faced a lot of guilt trying to cope with what the generation before them had done, they needed to move past it and still love their older relatives but it was often hard, as it was hard for Michael to handle knowing Hanna's true

Guilt is like a disease that plagues your thoughts, until it gets to much too handle. Why did I do that? Why had I not done something? Why him, not me? Guilt is a theme in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, from important characters, like Liesl's guilt for not telling her foster mother Ilsa Hubermann, that she loved her, to minor characters, like Michael Holtzapfel hanging himself over the fact that he survived Stalingrad, but his brother didn’t. Guilt directly affects the characters, changed how the story goes, and the tone of the story and the mood reader.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a story filled with many emotions that help to bring the characters to life with many of them going through hardships and feelings of great loss. Death states, “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). The characters in The Book Thief such as Liesel, Hans, Rosa, Rudy, and Max find themselves in situations where they have to act a certain way so as to not put their own lives in danger. Even if they don’t believe in the same things or have the same values as the Nazi Party, they must pretend in order to keep themselves from danger. Sometimes in order to protect themselves and

The acts of human nature can become a very difficult concept to understand. Markus Zusak uses Death throughout the The Book Thief to express the complexity of human nature. Death illustrates how complicated beings humans are and how they hold the capacity to act in both evil and beautiful ways. Throughout the novel Death helps give readers insight to the ignorance displayed and the pain it may cause a person. In the most troublesome and discriminatory times of the Holocaust, Death will point out the beautiful acts of compassion carried out by characters involved in the novel. Sometimes beauty and pain is mixed within the sacrifice some make for those they love and are loyal to.

Guilt plays a very big role in “The Book Thief”. It is one of the ways in which characters suffer. Guilt is a feeling of having done wrong or failed in an obligation. The feeling of guilt is inescapable and it constantly makes you “look behind your back”. Analyzing my observations, I concluded that there were two major characters that experience guilt: Hans Hubermann and Max Vandenburg. “Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then, think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.” (Zusak 211). This was a description of the feeling of guilt that Hans Hubermann was experiencing. He felt guilty because hiding a Jew. In Nazi Germany, this was very wrong. In fact, it was considered a crime. This feeling of guilt was eating him. Max Vandenburg was also being

“When a Jew shows up at your place of residence in the early hours of the morning, in the very birthplace of Nazismn, you’re likely to experience extreme levels of Discomfort, Anxiety, Disbelief and Paranoia.”, The propaganda of Hitler was the most important aspect in the The Book Thief because it often set the mood that I was feeling and that feeling was sick and cringing while reading the Novel. Before the war, The Nazi’s passed laws to effectively get rid of the Jews Human Rights and basically stripping and restricting them from being “human”. Max, The “Jewish Fist Fighter”, was a victim of the Propaganda and his presence served and reminded me the vast superiority that the German’s had against the Jews during the Holocaust.This made me think so negatively on the Propaganda that was set against the Jews and completely disagreeing with the way Hitler was seeing things because of the fact that for Max to be, “lucky”, lucky meant that his home was the Hubermann’s freezing basement

In Nazi Germany, the axis fought extremely hard to oppress Jews and dehumanize them. These ideals were pushed upon the German citizens relentlessly during Hitler's reign through laws. In the book, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the author presents the readers with characters who are under Nazi rule. These characters are all affected by the government in different ways, but the overarching theme of the book is the dehumanization of good people. Hans, Rudy, and Liesel all give humanity back to someone who has been dehumanized, even in the face of adversity.

“Here is a small fact: You are going to die”(Zusak 3). The Book Thief, a historical fiction book by Markus Zusak, is narrated by Death. The novel takes place during the 1930’s and 40’s in Nazi Germany and follows 9 year old Liesel Meminger, who death refers to as “The Book Thief.” After her father, mother, and then brother are killed, Liesel becomes an orphan and is taken in by Hans and Rosa Hubermann in Molching. Throughout the book, she meets many people including the Mayor’s wife, Isla Hermann, and Max Vandenburg, a Jew who is hiding from the Nazi’s in the Hubermann’s basement. Although Liesel’s life is filled with death and loss, she ends up surviving an air raid on her street and after the war, she is reunited with Max who survived

Markus Zusak: I needed someone with the tools to express the raw emotion of my story whilst keeping the sense of innocence that surrounds Liesel intact. Originally, I planned to use Liesel to do this. After all, who better to tell their story than the protagonist themselves? But after attempting to begin my story, I realised the flaw in my idea. Liesel is just a child and hasn’t the capacity to properly understand some of the scenes and the themes behind them. She lacks the experience and knowledge that death has and as a result would not be able to get certain messages across to viewers. By using death as a vessel I could give an overview of the war, and release information that is vital to understanding the novel. It also gave me the opportunity