Liesel's Character In The Book Thief

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Death was gentle when handling different souls, like Liesel’s sick brother, Werner, Rudy, and Hans and Rosa Hubermann.

Death showed his softer side when handling Werner’s soul. He held the spirit very softly and treated him like a valuable object. “He warmed up soon after, but when I picked him up originally, the boy’s spirit was soft and cold, like ice cream.” While in Death’s arms, Werner, Liesel’s brother, was held gently, not harsh or harmful to his soul in any way. Death held every soul differently, as if what they did to die depended on how their soul was taken. He cared about how Liesel was feeling and how she was handling her brother’s end. Death cares for the souls that he has to take even though it isn’t part of his job. He states, “Stupidly, I stayed. I watched.” When her brother died, Liesel was distressed and she shook his shoulders like he was sleeping and wasn’t waking up. Because he wasn’t. But Death, although it was against his job and not advised in case he turned his back on that soul, stayed and watched out of sympathy and fascination for Liesel’s reaction. He asked himself why they always shake them, yet despite that he watched something that he already knew was going to happen. Somehow, deep inside he felt something for his victims and the pain caused by their deaths. Death wasn’t necessarily gentle with Rudy’s soul but he did take into consideration the damage that had been done to Himmel Street and to Liesel at the time of his death, where it was apparent that his hair would finally stay the color of lemons forever. He was gentle in the way that he took the time to try to understand how Rudy’s family and Liesel were feeling and how this impacted them. “It was the color of the boy’s hair she saw first.” Death is describing Liesel in one of her most vulnerable moments in the book: when Rudy, her best friend from Himmel Street, died. He did not explain
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When he takes their souls, Hans’ soul is described as one of the best ones. “His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do - The ones who rise up…” Death talks about his soul as if it were a living object, because he cared about them. All of the souls he took, he cared about the damage and the pain and the chaos that was left behind. He knew and yet he still decided to do his job and pronounced that it wasn’t his business. There was something different about the book thief, though. The way she looked, and acted, and especially the way she wrote. Death could see that. He could also see that Hans, Liesel’s papa, was the one that she would always miss the most. More than Rosa or Werner or the boy whose hair would stay the color of lemons forever, and Death cared about her. He truly cared. “Even Death has a heart.” Death does have a heart, and it is portrayed throughout the book that he does care about his victims’ backgrounds, even if they deserved to live or to die. Even though he did his job, that didn’t affect the way that he treated those

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