Blog #3: The Book Thief

As I read through the first half of this book, the one character that really stood out to me was Hans Hubermann. As a person, you could really feel his compassion and love towards Liesel. He was caring and treated her as if she were his own child, not just a substitute that he was forced to take care of. He helped to her to read and was there for her when she was scared. I think that he is very nice compared to Rosa and I was glad that he was actually welcoming and showed that he believed in Liesel since Rosa beat her and seemed to look at her as only a way of getting paid, not as her own child. His perspective on the conflict that is occurring is that it is not right and shouldn’t be happening. He doesn’t think that it is right to discriminate against a group of people but he is afraid to speak up and say anything because he wants his family to be protected and does not want to start any trouble with the already horrible situations being experienced.

Hans faces many conflicts throughout the novel. One of the biggest once faced is the fact that he does not join the Nazi party even though his son is in it and many people are. His son calls him a coward for not joining and he begins to wonder if he really is one. The overall conflict that I believe Hans is facing is whether he should do what he thinks is right, or do what is wrong because everyone else is doing it. I think he wants to do what is right but with the circumstances faced, the wrong thing might be the safest thing. His perceptions regarding the Nazi regime are that they are wrong for what they are doing but that they are too powerful for anyone to be able to stop them.  On the imminence of war, he feels afraid of what could happen to his family, especially since he is not a part of the Nazi party that his son has joined. They probably think he is unfaithful and that could probably give them good reason to come after his family first. His view on the subjugation of the Jews is very strong as well. He knows that the treatment being done to them is very wrong and wants to help them but he is afraid to speak up because of his family. He doesn’t think that one race should be treated as better than another.

Han’s perspectives are unique because despite most people who didn’t give much of their own thought into what the situations were and just went along with everyone else; Hans clearly acknowledges that he knows right from wrong. He actually wants to do something to help out the Jews as well and no one during this time would be willing to do that which makes him so unique. I really like him as a character because of how loving and kind he is. I think that everyone deserves to be treated that way. I also like that he voices his opinion and knows that what’s occurring is wrong and that he wants to help. He seems to look out for the best of everyone which is nice when reading a novel about such horrific events and experiences.

Blog #2

As I read Maus, I quickly came to discover that Vladek's Holocaust narrative/experience was a very rough and wearisome time. The farther into the book I got, the worse it sounded. It made me wonder how anyone survived this harsh typeof treatment and how you could be even slightly “normal” after going through this type of event. Reading about the times when Vladek was a prisoner of war really made me look deeper into my emotions and ask myself the question “what emotions would I have felt during that time and how would I have coped”? Also, on pages 108-109 where Vladek and Anja have to make the decision of whether or not to send their son away so that he would have a better fate then being killed by the Germans really struck me as an interesting passage. I personally believe that this would be such a hard decision to make, but after reading the novel and seeing the brutal killings that happened to many of the children, I believe that the way their son died and what they did for him was the right thing to do.

As the novel progresses on, I believe that it is not the basic narrative that so much changes, but more the situation that changes a little bit each time and for the worst. For example, it starts out with Jews facing some struggles.Then as time progresses, the noose begins to tighten as Chapter 4 suggests, and things become even more strict. It comes to the point where Jews just have to hide out in bunkers that they build themselves to avoid the Germans at all costs and death as long as they can. In my group, we discussed how these bunkers were actually really interesting and that it was pretty cool that you could see the layout of the bunker in the images.

The story that is being told visually and not so much in the words are what the settings and times were really like. The images let us imagine even further what it was like because they give detail that we then connect with what we read. The visual story also shows us around what age Vladek is experiencing each situation. This helps to follow the narrative as well. When we look at both the words and images together however it puts the whole picture together and we really get to see the type of emotion that the characters are feeling and see the full situation. With both of these elements, we can read what the narrative is saying and then view the images of what the author wants us to really get from the words instead of each person having their own interpretation of what type of emotion is supposed to be felt.