The Book Thief passages

 "Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear." (350)

    This passage was critical moment in the development of death as a character/narrator. This moment is when death shows that amongst all the terrible things going on, they are there to offer support and compassion to the dying in their final moments. I think this shows some of the inner torment that death means when it talks about how humanity haunts it. Death sees all the good and evil in humanity, yet is still there to offer compassion in humans dying moments.


"He lay in bed with one of his sisters. She must have kicked him or muscled her way into the majority of the bed space because he was on the very edge with his arm around her. The boy slept. His candlelit hair ignited the bed, and I picked both him and Bettina up with their souls still in the blanket. If nothing else, they died fast and they were warm. The boy from the plane, I thought. The one with the teddy bear. Where was Rudy's comfort? Where was someone to alleviate this robbery of his life? Who was there to soothe him as life's rug was snatched from under his sleeping feet? No one." (531)

    This passage was the part that stood out to me the most out of the entire book. It really helped me understand Rudy's role in the story and his character development. Rudy was always there for others, even when no one was there for him. Rudy alleviated much of the pain from Liesel's life. He was always there to support her and be a friend for her. He was always right by her side to steal food when they were hungry, or offer moral support while she went into the mayors house to steal another book. I found it very sad at the end during this passage to think back on Rudy as a character and realize that he never necessarily had someone there to comfort him the way her comforted others. He even died this way, comforting his sister.

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