“The consequence of this is 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”. Death is the narrator of the novel ‘The Book Thief’. Death implies that there is something ugly and beautiful in every human being he has come across, but yet he doesn’t know how they can co-exist in one person. The Book Thief explores how beauty can co-exist with brutality. Liesel Meminger, Rosa Hubermann and Hans Hubermann are three of the vast majority of characters who show their beauty in the midst of brutality.
Firstly, Liesel Meminger is a hard one to discover something ugly about her since she is the main character and very likable. She tends to be mean to Rudy, calling him a ‘Saukerl’ every now and then. Saukerl meaning ‘male pig’. The influence behind her being mean to Rudy comes from a verbal abusive like mother. Rosa
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The way Rosa Hubermann shows her love towards Liesel is by her ugly side. Rosa was always quick with violence and abrupt language but slow in showing affection. One could say this was Mama’s way of showing love and protection and teaching her in order to make her safe. The moment when Max fell through the front door, Rosa started to show her hospitality and kindness towards the mad, even though he was Jewish. She was a good woman for a crisis. Rosa was selfless and giving towards Max, in a different way to Hans Hubermann. Her ugliness lies in where she tends to abuse people verbally. In the start of the novel, when there was a crowd surrounding the area when they tried to ‘coax’ out Liesel from the car, she curses at the crowd by saying ‘What are you arseholes looking at?’, and her tendency to describe Hans Hubermann as a ‘Saukerl’, who Liesel starts to get influenced by. But Rosa shows her kindness, hospitality, compassion and love through harsh