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Survivor's Guilt In 'The Book Thief'

1329 Words6 Pages

Silivea Sawires
Mrs. Reich
English 2 Honors, Period 2
12 April 2023
Survivor’s Guilt
Cambridge University defines Survivor’s Guilt as “difficult and painful feelings caused by the fact that you are still alive after a situation in which other people died:” While one may have survived a certain situation, it doesn’t mean it did not leave any scars. In the novel, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, the story starts with nine-year-old Liesel Meminger and her life story as she endures so many obstacles and trials throughout the novel. She gets sent to live with foster parents, the Hubermanns, during World War II after unfortunate circumstances that cause her mother to not be able to take care of her. The only reason she seemed to survive was because of her love for books and the friendships she made along the …show more content…

Zusak used multiple motifs including death, bread, and books to emphasize the theme of a survivor’s guilt. Multiple characters in the novel experience and witness the loss of a loved one, and have to deal with the trauma in the aftermath.
Death is a significant and recurring motif in this book when also taking into account that the narrator is death itself! The readers are introduced early on to the first death of the book, Liesel’s brother, "With one eye open, one still in a dream, the book thief- also known as Liesel Meminger- could see without question that her younger brother, Werner, was now sideways and dead, “(Zusak 20). Liesel Meminger, at only nine years old, has suffered the loss of her brother. Soon after, she is sent to live with her foster parents in Molching, Germany. This motif reflects the theme of the novel, survivor’s guilt because it explains how Liesel witnessed her brother dying and she could not do anything about her. While her brother suffered, she survived and was safe, for the time being, with her foster parents. Another instance where we witness a survivor’s guilt using death as a motif is when Max Vandenburg, a Jewish Man, was trying

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