The Book Thief Theme Essay

Martin Luther King once said “Only in the darkness you can see the stars.” Martin was unfairly treated his whole life. He couldn’t drink at the same fountains or swim in the same pools as people that were white. His whole life he was abused and unfairly treated, but he still learned kindness and peace, and eventually became famous and memorialized today. His situation is shown in some of the characters in the Book Thief. Even though there’s a lot of suffering and pain in the book, Markus Zusak shows how the characters grow from it, just like Martin did.
In the Book thief, Marcus Zusak illustrates how enduring pain can make people grow in the characters Max, Ilsa, and Liesel.
In the story, Max experiences enduring pain and gained a lot from it. When Max is a little boy, his father and uncle die, and their death motivated him to never give up. After Max's uncle dies, he vows "when death captures me, (Max) vowed he will feel my fist on his face" (189). Max’s vow proves that because he went through the pain of losing family, but he grew as a person by deciding he would never give up. Another example of this is when Max is stuck in the Hubermann’s basement, he learns to appreciate life more than he did before. When Liesel brings down snow in the winter, he says “Often (Max) wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do
When Liesel loses her family, she opens up about her problems to Max. In the middle of the night, Liesel is awoken and ends up talking to Max “The girl: Tell me. What do you see when you dream like that? The Jew: I see myself turning around, waving goodbye….. The Jew: What do you see? The girl: A train, and my dead brother.” (220) That part of the story shows that Liesel may have lost a lot, but she matured and opened up about her problems to someone else, instead of trying to solve her problems by herself. Liesel also endures pain and gains from it