Character Analysis: The Book Thief

The Book Thief

In times of hardships people look into others for support to help them overcome the hardships life presents. In the novel “The Book Thief” Markus Zusak shows how characters in the novel help each other cope and survive the harsh realities of life through sacrificing safety and by creating distractions. In the novel characters sacrifice safety to help others in need during times of hardships. Characters sacrifice the safety of family to aid others in times of struggle. When the

Hubermann’s take in Max Vandenburg they ultimately sacrifice the safety of the whole family. This is seen when Hans Hubermann tells Liesel “Liesel if you tell anyone about the man up there, we will all be in big trouble” (pg. 203). In this quote Hans tells

In the novel characters are supported by others through physical distractions, which help characters forget their problems. One of the ways this is presented is when Liesel takes to go stealing after one of his rough days at Hitler Youth. After Rudy explains his rough day at Hitler Youth he says “‘I need a win, Liesel. Honestly.’ Liesel knew. She’d have gone closer but for the smell of him. Stealing. They had to steal something.” (pg. 283). Even though Liesel knew it was wrong to steal, she still went stealing with Rudy in order to help him forget about his bad day. Although Liesel could have done something else with Rudy she still chose to do what Rudy wanted without looking at the consequences of getting caught. Liesel had put Rudy’s happiness over the heavy consequences she could face in order to create a distraction to help him, Liesel shows great support in this situation for Rudy. Moving forward another way characters in the novel help each other is by creating mental distractions. This is seen when Ilsa Hermann gives Liesel a book to create a mental distraction for her after she fired Rosa. In this part Liesel has an outburst at Ilsa “You give me this Saumensch of a book and think it’ll make everything good when I go and tell my mama that we’ve just lost our last one?” (pg. 252). Liesel became enraged at Ilsa for giving her the book just to make her

In times of hardships the character have each other’s backs to help one another. The support that is given by some characters are small or life changing but every support that is given makes impacts on the characters that receive it. It is always nice to have others that give support anyone during times of need in this novel Markus Zusak displays the many ways people support one