The beginning of part 3 begins when Liesel’s papa, Hans, sees that she stole a book out of the celebratory fire. He promises not to tell Rosa, her mama. You also find out that the mayor’s wife was the mystery identity who saw her steal the book. Later, when she goes to the mayor’s house to pick up the washing, she fears Frau Hermann will scold her, but instead, the Frau invites her into her library room. That puts Liesel in awe and also makes her very happy. Everytime she goes to the Hermann house for the washing, she also reads a few books at a time, a few paragraphs each. Liesel’s understanding of the literary world is expanded. It is in the library Liesel finds out that Frau Hermann’s son had died and that is why she is so reserved. At the…
Her brother died on the train when they were going to the Hubermanns. Her nightmares started the first day she was with the Hubermanns. Hans tries his best to sooth her pain from the memories by playing the accordion for her “Some days papa told her to get back into bed and wait a minute, and he would return with his accordion and play for her.” (Zusak 37) He plays for her to not only amuse her but to show her that he cares. Liesel’s nightmares tend to reoccur every night until she realizes that she is loved and she can trust her new…
Death pauses the Liesel’s story to help alleviate the stress of his job and how humans haunt him. He describes them as “heaps, all mounted on top of each other.” And while this sounds haunting, the reader imagines his job to be painless in comparison to what the Jews are going through; simply collect souls and send them on their way. However, like us, Death is human too. He connects to the human’s story, finds beauty in their lives, and becomes too interested in them.…
It is 1918, Liesel Meminger, a nine-year-old girl living in Germany during World War II. Undergoing many troubles Liesel’s experiences are narrated by Death, who describes both the beauty and destruction of life in this era. Liesel avoids the mayor's house at all costs because she suspects that the mayor's wife saw her steal the book from the bonfire. However, Liesel’s mother is working under the mayor, she has to pick up and deliver laundry everyday. The mayor’s wife has invited her to her library every time Liesel comes to pick up laundry. One day the mayor fires Liesel’s mother and that began the mischief of Liesel and…
On Hitler’s birthday, she sitting on the steps watching the dead aftermath of the celebration. She was just thinking about her mother and her brother. Then she started making calculations. “The word communist + a large bonfire + a collection of dead letters + the suffering of her mother + the death of her brother = the Fuhrer” (115). Liesel realized that her mother was taken was by Hitler because she was a communist and wanted to get revenge. She stole The Shoulder Shrug to get even with Hitler. His words caused her mother to go away, so she’s taking those words…
This passage was chosen because throughout the entire book the characters are tragically dying, especially at the end after the bombing. We see everyone that Liesel associated herself with die, and this one haunting sentence foreshadows the events. This statement makes it known to readers that death, is basically inevitable and that there will be a great deal of it in the text. The passage contributes to the work as a whole because it focuses in on one of the major themes in this novel, death. It uses death as a unifier, conclusively…
This passage makes me feel sad because of the sudden death of Liesel. As a result, this prompts me into realizing that one of theme of this book is about how life is unpredictable. An example of this is when Liesel dies without warning. I can relate to this theme because a friend of mine from elementary has committed suicide and none of her friends knew until her parents posted a post on Facebook declaring that she has died. Therefore, I've learned that cherishing the people around me is important as they might die without warning, like…
In this passage, Liesel is going through one of her toughest moments in her life. At the same time, the author uses the word darkness, to symbolize Liesel's feelings. In this situation, darkness is representing the feeling of hopeless. In other words, Liesel is currently going through a lot of fluctuations in her life which causes her to get trapped inside of her own world. Simultaneously, she loses hope in this world, causing her to see everything in darkness. The reasons that Liesel would feel this way is most likely due to her brother's death, being sent to a foster home and getting beaten by her foster mother and realizing that she will never have the chance to see her real mother again. As a result, Liesel's experiences makes my…
When Liesel saw Rudy “her hands were trembling” and she was “losing control and misjudging” things. Liesel was so shocked after seeing Rudy’s corpse that she started losing control of herself. She couldn’t accept his death, so she lost it and continuously tired to wake him up. Liesel described “Papa” as “a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.” Papa had silver eyes when he was alive so she expected him to have those eyes when she found him, but they disappeared and became dead after he lost his soul. His eyes “were all empty” and they “continued to rust.” After looking at Papa, Liesel said, “Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read.” This major detail expresses Liesel’s feelings towards her father, and it shows how important and influential “words” are to her.…
She is beginning to grasp the concept of reading and is seeing the effect words can have on people. She sees that words can be weapons. During the 1940’s, Hitler was in power. Hitler used words instead of guns and money to take over. He manipulated and tricked people into believing what he was doing was right. This shows that words can give someone the ability to rule and take charge if used in the right way. On page 262, Liesel is very rude to Frau Hermann. Liesel gets very angry that Isla cancelled her washing and uses words to insult Ilsa Hermann and damage the relationship they had. Later on Liesel apologises to Ilsa, but before she does, she feels terrible about the nasty things she…
From the beginning of the book death is always present. It was introduced with the passing of Liesel’s brother “Trees wore blankets of ice. As you might expect, someone had died”. Everyone that Liesel meets throughout the story has something in common with her, that something is…
When Liesel first starts to learn to read is when she starts to gain power and by the end of the book when she is able to read and she is able to use words to write down her ideas she gains even more power. The power the Liesel gains through her ability to read is evident in the bomb shelter where everyone is scared, however, when Liesel starts to read people listen and hearing Liesel reading is what helps calm the fear of the people in the bomb shelter. Liesel demonstrates her power over the Nazi’s by using words to calm the nerves of innocent people who are being affected by the Hitler and the Nazi’s lust for power and hatred of Jews. The Nazi’s physical power forced people to hide in a basement from airstrikes but Liesel much stronger ability of free thought and will is what helps these people get through a difficult time. Liesel also demonstrates her power with Frau Holtzapfel when she reads to her especially after one of her sons takes his own life, Liesel comforts her using the strongest ability she has which is her words. When Max arrives he arrives with a greater power than Liesel yet poses, he arrives with the ability of writing. Although, Liesel can read the words written by others and she can understand others thoughts it is not till Max arrives that she learns and is inspired to write her words down and place her thoughts on paper so that they will last an make impressions on…
Liesel, Rosa, and Death show beauty and brutality through their society of Nazi, Germany and through the rough humanity of their society. Each of the characters throughout the novel show perserverance; no matter how hard times get they keep trying to do better in their…
Albert is rewarded for his kindness, his reunion with Joey at the end of his story is his return for his kindness and hard work in the war. Liesel, on the other hand, is almost punished for her actions; she does not get any reunion with a long lost friend, she gets no happy ending, instead she has everything taken from her at the end of the story as her family and friends are killed in an indiscriminate bombing. The hatred for the other side, Ally or Central, in World War I and the genocide of the Jews in World War II were combated by the average citizens back home, who sympathized with their enemies and sheltered Jews from the searching eyes of the Gestapo. This is shown as Albert is not as happy as he thought he would be fighting in a war, seeing the brutality of it, losing friends and killing people back to back; and Liesel sees that no matter how good or kind people are, the world does not care with her alone surviving due to her books, while the kind Rudy, Hans, and Rosa are wiped out by bombs. It was this dual kindness and cruelty that made Death afraid of humans and crushed Liesel’s spirits for…
Based on your readings from Ch. 3 of the textbook and your personal experience, would you say that pop culture affects individuality? If so, how?…