Suffering In Hans Zusak's The Book Thief

The Book Thief is a historical fiction novel by Markus Zusak set in Munich, Germany during the Nazi reign from 1936-1943. The novel incorporates a main character that is, in the beginning, an innocent child who doesn't understand the world and takes her on a journey where she grows up and matures through the hardships and challenges of her life. The story is narrated by the character Death, who is a fresh take on the Grim Reaper, only wearing the black cloak when it's cold and never carries a syte. Death describes the life Liesel Meminger, an orphaned girl who witnesses her brother's death and burial and finds herself being adopted by the benevolent old couple, the Hubermanns. The rest of the story follows Liesel's journey through her incredibly challenging life with the Hubermanns and characters such as Rudy, The mayor's wife, and Max helping her along. Symbolism in The Book Thief deepens the story by conveying many different ideas and emotions that supports the reader's understanding of the story. This is especially apparent with the use of the gravediggers to help the reader remember characters, the use of color to help the reader feel the proper emotions and remember the correct events, and the use of Liesel's changing feelings about Rudy to convey how Liesel grows and matures through the book.

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

“The Book Thief,” is a No.1 International Best-selling novel by Markus Zusak. In the two chapters: “The Long walk to Dachau” and “Peace,” the themes of cruelty and kindness are strongly portrayed through many literary techniques and other ways. My analysis on this question is to see how and why these two themes are illustrated in the two chapters, and under what circumstances they chose to behave like that.

The Book Thief is set in the time of World War 2 where the Holocaust is present and disaster is everywhere. Throughout the story, Liesel, the main character, learns that words are extremely powerful and hold the ability for people to use them for good or for evil. Among the disaster and altercations, Liesel uses her literature to comfort her and make herself more powerful due to her knowledge, which demonstrates the theme of the story, the comfort and power of literature and words softens the pain of loss.

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.

According to Napoleon Bonaparte, courage isn’t having the strength to go on … it’s going on when you don’t have strength. Liesel, Max and Hans are the main characters in “The Book Thief” that have acts of courage entirely change their lives. This novel takes place during WWII in Germany. Countless Jews are desperately looking for the courage to endure the harsh rule of the Nazis. On the other hand there are some Germans who use their courage to stand against the Nazis in their own exceptional ways. The characters in “The Book Thief’ show acts of courage and this greatly affects the course of their life and relationships with other characters.

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

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 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.

In The Book Thief, a work of historical fiction, written by Markus Zusak introduces the main character Liesel Meminger, the reader starts to see how she keeps having many conflicts but always stays positive. Liesel has many conflicts, for example her brother dies early in the book and that shapes the way she is. Later on Liesel steals books and that makes her happy because the first book she stole was the grave digger's handbook and that is how she remembers her brother. Liesel steals and reads books this is how she finds happiness with all the bad things going on around her. In the end of the book most of the people she loves die and it is hard for her to find happiness again. The author uses the setting and point of view to express theme and to make the reader feel sympathy; He uses this because with the theme of finding light in the darkness, deaths perception, and the setting of Germany makes the theme clearer.

The theme of suffering can come in numerous varieties; under categories both physical and emotional. Suffering is presented as a key concept in ‘Othello’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. All three texts explore many aspects of suffering in parts, however the most obvious and concentrated facet leans towards the psychological aspect rather then the physical side. In the three chosen texts many of the characters suffer from some sort of emotional trauma. Psychological suffering and distress is a major topic in all three chosen texts as the authors use this ailment in order to drive the storyline forward,

Words can influence the mind in many ways that thought may not be able to. They are carefully placed and shared in different ways by each and every individual. Words have powerful impacts and can majorly impact how one may think, feel, or even lead others to feel. Written by Markus Zusak, “The Book Thief” describes a story of an innocent foster girl, Liesel Meminger, who resides in Munich, Germany at one of the most troubling time periods in history, Nazi Germany. A tale narrated by the one and only Death himself, shows the perspective from his point of view, as well as others, describing how Liesel had been seized away from her birth mother at a young age, and put into a foster family. Her new family, the Hubermanns. As she matures and grows into a more critical thinker, understanding and analyzing everything that carefully happens around her. Her foster-father, Hans guides her and teaches her how to read, which little does she know sparks her journey, the art of stealing books. Liesel soon discovers that words aren 't simply lines on a page, they are strong emotions packed into a form that merely is held in her delicate hands. Not only did she hold the pages of emotion, she held a power, a dangerous weapon of words, a weapon of control, and every book that she had stolen was giving her unimaginable power that made her think in ways that she would’ve never thought she could have. As with Nazi propaganda, and a gift that enabled her to broaden her worldview. Liesel evolves

“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 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, we see the events of World War II Germany through the eyes of Death himself. In the novel, Death seems to think that humans are extremely brutal. At one point he admits that he is haunted by humans because of the horrible things they do. Although Death believes that humans are vicious, I do not. I believe that most if not all humans are good at heart. There is just something about being human that makes us beautiful. In today’s society it may seem as if the world is a bad place to be. However this is misleading. The only reason why people focus on the bad is because they fail to see the good. The same applies to The Book Thief. The only reason why Death is haunted by humans is because he only sees