Book Thief And The Pianist Comparison Essay

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, takes place in 1940s Nazi Germany in the small town of Molching. The main character, Liesel Meminger, takes on a role as the foster child of Hans and Rosa Hubermann. She also meets a young boy named Rudy Steiner, who goes on to be her best friend and lover. In the book, Liesel faces many challenges big and small. From hiding a Jew in the basement to a thieving lifestyle, Liesel has to learn to overcome all of life's problems. Through all of this, she is supported by her foster father Hans Hubermann who is caring to people he barely knows, intelligence despite his lack of education, and generosity even when he has little for himself.

Brutality and Beauty are both aspects of the human spirit and therefore are evident in society and have been through the ages. History can be examined to bring forth examples of both, often side by side, often in times of great destruction such as in times of war. In the novel, The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak explores and compares the juxtaposition between great brutality and beauty in the human spirit evident in the German town of Molching during WW2. The author demonstrates how the characters in the novel can overcome cruelty and ruthlessness with acts of extraordinary kindness and humaneness. This is shown through the novel with Max and Liesel’s friendship, when Hans gives one of the Jewish camp prisoners a piece of bread and when Rosa and Hans protect Max from the Nazis. Zusak illustrates that a human’s capacity for hope is difficult to destroy regardless of the circumstances.

The Book Thief’s plot is character driven in the beginning. Characters choose to make their own decisions and consequently feel the effects of later on. For example, Liesel and Rudy intentionally make the decision to steal books from Ilsa Hermann’s library. The Hubermann and the Steiner families both make the subconscious decision to dislike the Nazis. Finally, Hans Hubermann makes the potentionally incriminating decision to harbor a Jew, Max, in his basement. These characters choose to go against their morals, yet their decisions work in their favor. Nearing the end of the book, the plot structure switches to plot driven; external forces disturbing the characters more than their own decisions and actions do. This novel is centered around the Holocaust and the war was taking place, and without this, many of the major events would not have happened, resulting in a different outcome for the characters. The bombs set off due to the war also influenced the characters by a great deal, causing their panic and fear to control their

The characters’ need to empower themselves stems from the settings around them. In The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger is left with two complete strangers, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, for foster parents in Germany after her communist mother is taken by the Nazis. While Liesel and her brother, Werner, travel to Himmel Street, he dies and is buried beside the railroad tracks. Just after burying Werner, Liesel grieves: “Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces. Each half was glowing, and beating under all that white” (Zusak 24). While, the loss of her brother sets the stage for Liesel’s suffering throughout the book, a

The Book Thief is a historical novel written by Markus Zusak. It provides the readers a deeper understanding of the lives of Jews and Germans in Germany during the brutal Nazi regime and how they manage to survive. This includes not only the physical survival of the fittest, but also the survival of their moral beliefs. In addition to the author’s theme of inhumanity and humanity of man, he provides a background story for the characters in the book and how they are similar and different by their moral beliefs, their goals, their guilt, and their relationship with words. Two of the characters that are mentioned throughout the book to remind the readers of their struggles to survive in the Third Reich are Liesel and Max. Liesel is the foster daughter of Hans and Rosa Hubermann and “the book thief” who realizes the power of words in the Nazi community while Max is a fist fighter and German Jew who hides in Hans’s basement to escape from Nazi incarceration and eventually survives the concentration camp after he is arrested on his way to Stuttgart by the Nazis. Liesel and Max can be compared and contrasted through analyzing their struggles, includes their fear of the death, their guilt of

After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews.

In the past few weeks, we have been reading the book, the Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The book tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a girl from Germany in the time of the Holocaust. The book starts with her as a nine year old, and progresses through her life until she is an old lady. The story details the life of this woman through these times. And in the story, her priorities are reading and learning. She steals books like The Grave Digger’s Handbook and The Shoulder Shrug, but one book which has negative influence was the book made by the Nazi Leader, Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). Hitler wrote the autobiographical book, which was spread around the Germans, who were brainwashed by the propaganda. The Mein Kampf influenced these citizens, but was the influence good? The book created nothing but negativity. There are three examples which are strong showings to prove the influence of the Führer caused nothing but hatred. Those three are Hans Junior, Max, and the entire population of the Jews. Those three personas were effected in a way which caused nothing but hurt to people.

War cannot exist without hatred, and hatred cannot be soothed by more hate; it can only be masked by love. World War II was a time for darkness and death, injustice and inequality. People were subjected to acts of inhumanity and hatred, simply for being who they were, having thoughts and showcasing their opinions. Markus Zusak introduces characters such as Liesel and the Hubermanns, who live in Nazi Germany, in the midst of destruction and horror. The war deeply affects their way of living, bringing unwanted conflict in their lives. In The Book Thief, love is a prominent theme which works to hide and soothe the hatred brought along by the war; Max Vandenburg, a Jewish person, finds that the love shown to him by the Hubermanns overpower the hatred he faces because of how he was born, and Liesel and the Hubermanns learn that showing love when the war comes to Molching can help create a sense of comfort and safety.

Many, many people suffered during the Holocaust war. The Jews in particular were in grave danger. The drama ‘Anne Frank’ outlines so many ways that this historical event caused a shift in the mood of the characters and their relationships. Before the Holocaust, Anne Frank was just an ordinary Jewish girl living in Germany. A German leader named Adolf Hitler developed a plan to destroy the Jews and to rule over the specific places where they lived. What Hitler did to these poor Jews, and the sheer terror they endured at the hands of this Nazi leader is purely unfathomable.

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?

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak shows through the midst of brutality, beauty can still be shown. The main characters Liesel Meminger, Rudy Steiner and Hans Huberman, prove this statement they are all faced with perilous situations, but still manage to show beauty throughout the situations. Liesel Meminger display beauty during the air raids, as she manages to read to people in the basement. Rudy Steiner displays beauty he jumps in the river to get Liesel’s book. Through Hans Huberman nobel character he displays beauty as he risks his life to hide a Jewish man in his basement.

Through all of the irony and vivid coloring, The Book Thief is more easily understood after acquiring knowledge of reading literature with greater care and meticulousness. Applying chapters of How to Read Literature like a Professor can better enhance a reader’s awareness of hidden messages and symbols within certain works of literature. In Chapter Two, Foster explains how meals suggest a communion between all parties involved in it. Markus Zusak also uses meals and food to bring families together in The Book Thief. Foster also explains, in Chapter Eleven, how violence in literature usually stands for more than just violence.

Death states that, “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). This book shows us human doing things that weren’t even imaginable before this point. Many people give into ideas that were lies. But, we also watch a few people go out of their way and sacrifice everything for a man they barely even know. They do everything they can to keep him safe and alive. They work harder, the get another job, and they even steal. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, death examines the ugliness and the beauty of humans.

“The power of words, written or spoken, have life. They can change the world.” (search quotes). The power of words should not be underestimated. Liesel proves this to be true in the novel and the film The Book Thief. She uses words to develop relationships with her foster father, Hans Hubermann; Max Vandenburg, the illicit Jew in her basement; and her neighbours. In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak there is much more relationship development compared to the film The Book Thief directed by Brian Percival. This consequently causes the theme of the power of words to be less prominent in the film.

“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