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The Book Thief By Charles Dickens

Decent Essays

How Can We Be Both
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” wrote a famous author by the name of Charles Dickens about his story. He could not have gotten mankind more spot on. In each and every one of us there is a bit of both good and bad. We are not painted in black in white, but in an array of colors with an array of emotions and feelings. Another man that ponders about humanity is Marcus Zusak. In his book, The Book Thief, the narrator wonders “how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant”. Death, the narrator, has been through the ups and down of humanity and is perplexed how the same thing could be good and bad, pretty and ugly. Many of the characters in this …show more content…

All that they mostly wanted was food. They would steal from farmers and grocery stores. One day, though, they decided to steal from a person they thought had too much. They watched this person’s routine and learned that he would carry his groceries home on a bike every Friday afternoon. On one particularly cold Friday, Rudy poured water on the street that he knew Otto Sturm, the victim would cross, so that the water could freeze and make Otto slip and fall. In no time at all he was “losing control of the bike, sliding across the ice, and lying facedown on the road.” (163) The kids became very alarmed, thinking that they had killed the man and still felt guilty afterwards. Death gives us a bit of insight and tell us that Rudy will later on become a giver of bread instead of a stealer. “Proof again of the contradictory human being”, Death comments.(164) We are all human and we can all create and destroy. Take and give. Sometimes humans use too. Liesel, for example, used Frau Hermann as an emotional punching bag. When Frau Hermann said that she could no longer continue paying for Liesel’s Mother’s business, Liesel was devastated. Why wouldn’t she be. Frau was their last client and her family was barely getting by with food. Liesel felt hurt and said some horrible thing, like “about time you do your own stinking laundry” and “about time you faced the fact that your son is dead.”(262)The things that she said only got worse.

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