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Brutality In The Book Thief

1316 Words6 Pages

Beauty from Brutality No single person is free from the toil of this world, or the hardships associated with it. This comes as brutality towards the ill-fated. These people cope with brutality in order to function. To cope with brutality, many find beauty to be their escape from pain by finding distractions from this brutality. On Himmel Street, the characters of The Book Thief share the hardships of their past and current situation, along with the necessity to cope with it. In the novel The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak exemplifies beauty appearing within the wake of brutality, as well as the resilience of spirit in times of hardship with Max, Liesel, and Death Death’s use of color to cope with his dreadfully miserable job demonstrates the resilience …show more content…

Even death, a metaphysical entity understands the full spectrum of experiences Liesel has gone through. Death unfruitfully “[tries to tell the book thief many things] about beauty and brutality” but “he couldn’t tell her [things she already knew]” (550). Deaths inability to inform Liesel about countless struggle and resilience towards it demonstrates Liesel’s innate understanding of hardship. Death decides not to tell Liesel anything due to the fact that she has culminated an immense understanding of her experiences on both sides of the beauty spectrum, and it is because of this understanding Liesel grows stronger in her resilience towards further hardship. Evidence of Liesel’s struggle starts early on with the death of her brother, as well as her abandonment by her mother. Because of this abandonment, she is given the opportunity to find beauty within the care of the Hubermanns. Using Hans, or Papa, as a crutch, Liesel derives beauty quickly from the recent past. Liesel, though still coping is able to see her foster father as “her new papa [that] soothed and [loved her]” due to the realization that “trust was [built quickly between them] [because of his gentleness, and presence]” (36). In order to realize the blessing of Han’s presence in Liesel’s life, …show more content…

Beauty is shown most prominently through times of struggle, not times of peace. This fact demonstrates the ability of beauty to show through as the driving force in beauty. In order to exist, beauty and brutality coexist. Without the wake of this brutality, beauty would never rise above, showing a balanced relationship between the two

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