Hatred In The Book Thief

1. a. External conflict – The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, tells the story of a little girl Liesel, who is given up by her mother to live with Hans and Rosa Huberman during the time of World War II. When they take in and hide a Jewish man named Max, she quickly learns of great violence and prejudice of the outside world, and she must face the dangers, hate, and death from the war era caused by Adolf Hitler at such a young age. b. Internal conflict- Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy, is a book about a teenage girl named Danielle who takes a summer job babysitting a little boy named Humphrey, and one day when she was watching him he ran into oncoming traffic to retrieve a football and died on her watch.

In “The Book Thief” written by Marcus Zusak, Liesel is a small, resourceful girl, who Death says “Has a mountain to climb”. It is not a physical mountain that Liesel has to climb, rather a emotional mountain full of rocks that tumble down the steep slopes trying to knock her off every time she stops moving forward. All her life she has gone without and been abandoned, but that never stopped her from climbing. Liesel is a very lucky girl to have so many “climbing partners” so to speak, such as Hans, Rosa, Max, and Rudy. Without her partners to help anchor her to the mountain, I am sure she would have perished long ago. Her journey started when she was just a small girl living in poverty with her mother and brother.

In Markus Zusak’s, The Book Thief, adversity is an important factor in shaping character. Liesel, Max, Rosa and Hans Hubermann all face hardships that help their character develop.The Book Thief is set in Germany during the time of WW2 when Hitler, the Fuhrer, rose to power. This was a hard time for Rosa and Hans because of their struggle to raise a foster child. It was also tough for Liesel because she had to get accustomed to a new place with different rules, but out of everyone, Max definitely faced a lot of problems.

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

In the beginning of The Book Thief, the reader meets Liesel Meminger, her mother, and her brother, Werner Meminger. The father is never introduced. It is only said that he is a communist. Werner dies on the train to Himmel Street, the place that Liesel is left with a couple, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel’s mother is never seen again, but the reader assumes that she was taken away for being one of the Nazi’s targets. According to The Book Thief, “What came to her then was the dustiness of the floor, the feeling that her clothes were more next to her than on her, and the sudden realization that this would all be for nothing—that her mother would never write back and she would never see her again.” Nazis were the epitome of evil. They tore families apart and killed millions of innocent people.

It may sound pathetic, but hate nourishes hate. Hitler hated Jews and as a charismatic negative leader taught the whole nation to hate them. Jews saw how Nazis attack children, women and elderly, torture them, rape, and kill, and their anger fueled turning into burning hate. Jewish people started to extrapolate the emotions they experience towards Nazis to all Germans. “I began to hate them,” states Elie

Life during the 1940’s was hard for the entire world. As Germany caused suffering and loss in multiple other countries, the people of Germany suffered as well. The Book Thief follows the story of a German girl named Liesel, who was forced to be taken away from her family at a young age. She then becomes the foster daughter of Rosa and Hans Hubermann, whose children have grown up and left. Liesel struggles to understand why her mother had left her, and why Hitler was causing all of the bad things in her life to happen. In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak uses the theme of loss to show how it can bring people closer together.

Adolf Hitler is a prime example of the cruelty in humans in The Book Thief. Hitler fed the German people lies, conned them into his accepting his beliefs and then completely destroyed all hope throughout the entire country. He made people feel terrified for living lives guided by their own beliefs, and that they shouldn’t feel comfortable in their own bodies if their features were different than what Hitler said was acceptable. Liesel couldn’t even feel safe with herself because she had brown eyes. If a Nazi soldier were to see her and look into her eyes, it would be an automatic trip to death camp. When Liesel first meets Rudy, he shows her the road of yellow stars (Zusak 51). The road of yellow stars

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.

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.

If you believe in yourself and have dedication, pride, and never quit, you will be successful. Markus Zusak, the author of The Book Thief, creates a story of a young orphan named Liesel Meminger, who is living with her new foster family. She learns the wonders of reading from her foster father and grows to love books. During Liesel’s time with her new family, she shows determination through her efforts and kindness with her encounters with other people. Liesel in The Book Thief expresses her traits, such as hardworking, and bravery.

What is an enemy? Is an enemy someone who you despise, or someone who you dislike? Or is an enemy someone who betrays you? My book club and I have read many chapters in the book (Hush). From the chapters that we have read I have noticed a theme emerging from the novel. That theme is: keep your friends close but your enemies closer. On page 39 paragraph 3 the text states "I've known officer Dennis all my life, but in this moment, I don't know him at all." Toswiah's dad had been friends with officer Dennis for a long time. Officer Dennis used to give Toswiah a ride home from school and even went to her birthday party, but at that very moment when Officer Dennis shot the boy Toswiah didn't know him at all. Raymond Taylor was the boy who was shot

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

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.

The Book Thief is set in Nazi Germany where showing the smallest acts of love and compassion were sometimes considered as crimes. Love is shown in the form of loyalty, camaraderie and love of family. Although, love is often thought to be romantic but love in The Book Thief is not. The novel is mostly controlled by death and cruelty. Showing love will always be stronger than hate because loving something comes more naturally to humans than hating. Markus Zusak suggests that love is ultimately stronger than hate, when Hans Hubermann slaps his foster daughter, Liesel Meminger, across the face, when Rosa Hubermann looks after Frau Holtzapfel or when Hans Hubermann gives a Jew the crust of a stale piece of bread. These incidents might not look as if they’re examples of love, but they are.