Courage In The Book Thief

“Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway, “ says Dr. Robert Anthony. What is the definition of courage? It doesn’t exactly mean to be fearless about something, but to not let fear stop you from doing it. Courage can have a positive effect because it helps people to achieve their dreams and creates the opportunity for amazing things to happen. Everyone has different opinions, though, and some people think of courage in a negative way. For example, some people who have gained the courage to do very dangerous things have gotten themselves killed, or seriously injured. However, something positive came out from that result, and things happen for a reason. The fact that those people were brave enough to even attempt something
This is exactly what Hans Hubermann, a character from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, does. Hans is the foster father of the main character in the book, Liesel Meminger. The setting of the book is during WW2 with Adolf Hitler as the leader of Germany, so anything that is done wrong could be extremely dangerous. In part four of the book, a Jewish man knocks on the Hubermanns’ door. During the Holocaust, Jewish people were extremely hated, and if found, they would be sent to concentration camps to be killed. The first thing the man says is, “ ‘Hans Hubermann? Do you still play the accordion?’ “ ( Zusak 173 ). Immediately, Hans knew who this man was. The man’s father had saved Hans’ life back in World War 1, but unfortunately, he himself had died as a result Hans knew this was the way to pay him back for what he had done for him. For a long period of time in the story, the Jewish man, Max, lived in the Hubermann’s basement. Hans is taking a huge risk by keeping a Jew in his basement, and he understands what will happen if he is caught. Later on in the book in part 7, a parade of Jews march through Himmel Street, which is where the Hubermanns’ live. Hans saw one man in the crowd, older than the others. He was struggling to keep up, so Hans went up to him and gave him a piece of bread. Everyone watched in silence and surprise. Both Hans and the man were whipped several times. “ ‘What was I thinking?’ he said. ‘Oh
Courage isn’t just exemplified in literature, but in the real world as well. Rosa Parks is a famous African - American civil rights activist who was born on February 4, 1913. The United States called her “ The First Lady of Civil Rights “ and “ The Mother of the Freedom Movement “. On December 1 in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, she was on a bus. Parks refused to listen to the bus driver, James F. Blake, when he told her to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger because the white section was filled. It takes courage to stand up for your rights, so imagine the courage it took for Rosa to do something like that back then. She didn’t have any legal rights or any form of protection, and she defied the law. She didn’t want to be treated differently anymore, and she thought it was wrong. “ The only tired I was, was tired of giving in,”she said. Rosa wanted to do something not just for herself, but for everyone else who didn’t have the courage to do what was