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Zusak Research Paper

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I really believe that everyone in the world has some kind of fakeness to themselves. We cheat, we lie, we steal, we pretend, and everyone knows it. These are unspoken truths that nobody wants to admit being guilty of. Even if everyone knows we are, we don’t want the words to be spoken because words have dangerous power. Liesel knows this for herself, though I don’t think she realizes that she knows it. When Papa found out that Liesel stole another book she asked him if he was going to tell Mama. Hans said “why would I?” and Liesel said that she “hated questions like that. They forced her to admit an ugly truth, to reveal her own filthy, thieving nature” (Zusak 127). Nobody ever wants to admit a flaw that they have because it opens up a moment of vulnerability, and if someone grabs ahold of that moment of weakness then they gain full control of the moment. That person gains leverage, and leverage is power: it’s always power that people search…show more content…
A fear of opening up and spilling out a flaw that makes us defenseless against the cruelty of human nature: because people can be quite cruel. Don’t lie to yourself about that. If society is anything it is cruel. We judge, and demand that everyone be an image of perfection. No one can be that though, so to make ourselves feel perfect we try to expose other’s imperfect qualities. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t think Hans was trying to make Liesel vulnerable. I think he had an innocent moment of pure astonishment. The idea that Liesel thought that he would tell Mama that she stole the book was surprising, maybe even amusing to him. This was a question of love that he asked, not of shame. I want to be more like Hans in this manner. I don’t want to fall into the depths of a cruel, shaming society. I want to love so deeply that the flaws don’t look like flaws anymore: they look like a single red flower blooming in a field full of white daisies. Different, astonishing at first, but
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