Student Question

In The Book Thief, would you argue that humans are more "beautiful" or "brutal"?

Quick answer:

In "The Book Thief," the duality of human nature is evident through characters who display both "beautiful" and "brutal" traits. While society under Nazi rule pressures individuals into conformity, some characters like Hans and Rosa Hubermann resist by helping Jews. Liesel's actions, such as rescuing Ludwig, highlight compassion amidst brutality. The novel suggests humans possess both good and evil qualities, reflecting Emerson and Rousseau's ideas on societal influence on human nature.

Expert Answers

An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

In his essay "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson argues,

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Since man's early beginnings, there have been the strong and the weak; in the basic struggle for survival, the stronger have dominated the weaker. So, in order to survive,the weaker have often conjoined with the stronger in tribes, clans, societies; however, this unification often costs the weaker individual his liberties. Certainly, then, Markus Zusak 's novel illustrates this basic truth about humanity. Set in Nazi Germany, a regime that set about to dominate the Western world, Germans are...

Unlock
This Answer Now

Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

forced to embrace Nazism or be killed, or go into hiding as many Jews did. Like real people, the characters ofThe Book Thief, act not so much out of personal convictions, but more in self-preservation against a society that "conspires" against them. One exception is Rudy Steiner, who in youthful idealism paints himself to represent Jesse Owens (to whom Hitler turned his back as he refused to recognize him as a human being in the 1936 Berlin Olympics when he won a gold medal) and run through the streets. Yet, he later dies.

Still, repression by a totalitarian government yields its private dissidents. Such are Hans and Rosa Hubermann; they both dissent with their taking in a foster child of Communists, and by their harboring of the fugitive Jew, Max Vanderburg; individually Hans dissents by furtively teaching Liesel to read while Rosa vociferates her anger and frustration with her state of being upon Liesel. Then, out of guilt, she is kind to the girl. Liesel herself does not believe in Nazism, but in Part 2 when the Liesel dons her brown uniform and attends a book burning rally, she finds herself caught up in the emotional chauvinism of the Youth march, and her heart swells. However, when she hears the dreaded word Kommunisten (Communists), her fears return.

_____________________________________________________

So, return to Emerson and, perhaps, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who strongly felt that man's essence is one of goodness, but the evils of society and governments corrupted the purity of his soul. This idea, indeed, seems closely aligned with the character analysis of the personages of Zusak's novel as it also does with much of humanity in general, although there are those "bad seeds" found throughout history. And, since literature represents the human experience, there are close parallels between the characters and real people, so close that it is difficult to judge one group as more cruel or kind than the other. Rather, there are both traits in people, real or fictional.

As an example of how people are both "brutal" and "beautiful" consider a passage from Part 2 in which Liesel Meminger rescues Ludwig Schmeikel, the boy who earlier has ridiculed her for being unable to read. After his ankle is broken by the frenzied crowd, Liesel manages to pull him away.

His face wore a helpless expression beneath his tangled blond hair....He was just an animal hurt among the melee of its own kind, trampled by it....They staggered to the steps of the church...and rested...relieved.

"Thanks," he said..."I'm sorry--for you know."

Approved by eNotes Editorial