In analyzing Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief we can see that you only see who someone truly

is when they are most vulnerable.

Submitted by: Nicholas Biancolin

Submitted to: Ms. Kalinauskas
Date: Jan. 15/20
Course Code: ENG-2D2
“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.”
“He came in every night and sat with her. The first couple of times, he simply stayed—a
stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, “Shhh, I’m here, it’s all
right.” After three weeks, he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the
brute strength of the man’s gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans
Huberman would always appear midscream, and he would not leave…. Each morning, he
was a few feet away from her, crumpled, almost halved, in the chair.”
“I…” He struggled to answer. “When everything was quiet, I went up to the corridor and the
curtain in the living room was open just a crack…. I could see outside. I watched, only for a
few seconds.” He had not seen the outside world for twenty-two months…. Max lifted his
head, with great sorrow and great astonishment. “There were stars,” he said. “They burned
my eyes.”
“Liesel was sure her mother carried the memory of him, slung over her shoulder. She
dropped him. She saw his feet and legs and body slap the platform. How could that woman
walk? How could she move? That’s the sort of thing I’ll never know, or comprehend—what
humans are capable of.”
* * * A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR * * *
I am haunted by humans.
 Works Cited:
Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

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