Thursday, September 22, 2011

Morality Through Literature

                Everybody has morals that differ from one another. Each person has a definition of what is considered good and what is considered bad. What one person may consider a good moral, someone else may consider it as a bad moral. Whether a moral is good or bad is impossible to classify. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, he gives each character a set of morals that differ from each of the other characters. The characters he uses to display these differences include Liesel, Liesel’s birth mother, and Liesel’s foster father Hans Hubermann.

                An instance where morality is displayed in Liesel’s life is when she steals the books. While attending the burial ceremony of her brother, Liesel discovers a book in the snow, The Grave Digger’s Handbook. It is here where steals her first book. This leads to the stealing of numerous books throughout the course of the novel and allows the audience to understand the moral standpoint of Liesel. Liesel also succumbs to the pressure of stealing food from the farmer, showing that she will do anything for the greater good of her and her family. Some may question this act and consider it as immoral. However, it contains good intentions as she is only trying to feed her family. Thievery is an illegal and immoral act, but with good intentions as she has for the act, some may look at it as a moral act.

                Liesel’s birth mother puts her kids up for adoption in the beginning of the novel. As such an awful act as it may seem, she does this with good intentions. She does this act in order to keep her children safe from the Nazi party. Many people may see this as she does not love her children, but puts them up for adoption in order to save them and keep them safe.

                Hans Hubermann contains a characteristic that may seem foolish to some. Hubermann does not agree with Nazism and their way of going about things. He paints over graffiti that is disrespectful towards Jewish people and takes a positive stance for their safety and rights. Going against the Nazi way, he hides a Jewish man in his basement for a period of two and half years, something that the Nazis would consider immoral. For Hubermann, this act of kindness is considered moral because he is doing a kind and generous thing for someone in need.

                Zusak uses each character as a pivotal piece to his novel, The Book Thief, in order to display the differences between each of their morals. What one may consider as immoral, another may consider as moral with good intentions. There is no complete definition as to what is moral, for everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Zusak’s novel does a magnificent job to display the differences between people’s morals and beliefs and to show why it is impossible to characterize something as moral or immoral.

5 comments:

  1. I like the points you made, especially with Hans hiding a Jewish man in his basement. However, would it still be moral to help someone who had escaped prison and needed somewhere to go? Maybe you could explain how it differs hiding someone who is "morally innocent" as opposed to someone who went to jail for committing a real crime. Good post Young Money.

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  2. I like how you used Liesel and Hans as two of the main points of morality. It is true that what they do throughout the book can be viewed as immoral, but I like how you say they are justified. I think you could have mentioned the Nazis a little more, as they are pretty much the most immoral thing in the book. For the most part, you raised good points and were able to support them with evidence from the book. Good post!

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  3. Nice post, I like the language you used, It shows that you really took your time on this. I also admire the way you talk about Hans in the fourth paragraph because it's crazy that now we see it as kind and generous but back then, no one thought of it that way. Obviously you know I read the book and I loved it, thought it was inspiring and recommend it to people all the time. Did you like the book in that sense that I understood it, as a really meaningful story?

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  4. Great post Nate, I think you’re the only one who didn’t use Death’s morals in your post, instead you used some of the minor characters. My question to you is why do you think Liesel stole all of those books? Did she do it just for the thrill or was there a larger purpose behind it?

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  5. I think your post needs a little more detail when you talk about your characters. Also it is lacking evidence and quotes which would really help describing your characters and their morals. Although overall you made good points and connections with your characters.

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