Rachel Basey
Period F
August 4, 2015 Rough Draft Essay
The historical fiction novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak takes place in Nazi Germany. Although Nazi Germany is often only associated with the intolerance and persecution of Jews and other Holocaust victims, this novel is about an everyday, ordinary citizen of Germany. Death narrates the tale of this ordinary citizen, a young girl named Liesel Meminger. Throughout the novel Liesel learns to read, love, and understand the power of words from her gentle foster father and a few books she steals. In the midst of an ordinary childhood, she also is put in much danger. Her foster parents hide a Jewish man in their basement and her father is punished for his tolerance towards Jews. …show more content…
The narrator of the story is Death, but he is different from the conventional Grim Reaper. He is tiresome of collecting souls and often sympathetic. Death puts a different perspective on tolerance and intolerance because he has seen people and the way they act in all points of time. “The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. 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.” (Zusak 491). The narrator shows that humans have always been kind and cruel and that tolerance and intolerance exist in the same world. His confusion is justified, even characters that are kind toward others can become angry, unfair, and intolerant. “Blood leaked from her nose and licked at her lips. Her eyes had blackened. Cuts had opened up and a series of wounds were rising to the surface of her skin. All from the words. From Liesel’s words.” (Zusak 253). Death seems to find Liesel both compelling and admirable. She is generally kind and tolerant, but she has also shown intolerance. Ilsa Hermann fires Liesel’s mother and in return Liesel treats her completely unfairly because she is angry. The point of view of the narrator shows how even the most tolerant characters can be cruel or
Period F
August 4, 2015 Rough Draft Essay
The historical fiction novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak takes place in Nazi Germany. Although Nazi Germany is often only associated with the intolerance and persecution of Jews and other Holocaust victims, this novel is about an everyday, ordinary citizen of Germany. Death narrates the tale of this ordinary citizen, a young girl named Liesel Meminger. Throughout the novel Liesel learns to read, love, and understand the power of words from her gentle foster father and a few books she steals. In the midst of an ordinary childhood, she also is put in much danger. Her foster parents hide a Jewish man in their basement and her father is punished for his tolerance towards Jews. …show more content…
The narrator of the story is Death, but he is different from the conventional Grim Reaper. He is tiresome of collecting souls and often sympathetic. Death puts a different perspective on tolerance and intolerance because he has seen people and the way they act in all points of time. “The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. 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.” (Zusak 491). The narrator shows that humans have always been kind and cruel and that tolerance and intolerance exist in the same world. His confusion is justified, even characters that are kind toward others can become angry, unfair, and intolerant. “Blood leaked from her nose and licked at her lips. Her eyes had blackened. Cuts had opened up and a series of wounds were rising to the surface of her skin. All from the words. From Liesel’s words.” (Zusak 253). Death seems to find Liesel both compelling and admirable. She is generally kind and tolerant, but she has also shown intolerance. Ilsa Hermann fires Liesel’s mother and in return Liesel treats her completely unfairly because she is angry. The point of view of the narrator shows how even the most tolerant characters can be cruel or