Night and The Book Thief

After reading and finishing Night, I found numerous of similarities between that book and The Book Thief. While it both deals with the holocaust, it was the basis of humanity in both stories that really got to me. In Night I discovered the worst of humanity but I also uncovered the preeminent of it as well. While, at times there were those who abandoned their love ones to survive, there were also some instances in which their better side won over their selfish desire to live. For example, for numerous of times Elie Wiesel had given up his ration of soup to his father. Although, Wiesel had abandoned his father some other times as well, by giving his father his ration of soup it shows that Elie did truly care for his father and desired for him to live. At those moments he forfeited his instinctual yearning for self preservation to save someone that he really cared about. And this is the same moral basis that I find in The Book Thief.

In the beginning The Book Thief, Liesel mostly cared only for herself as well as a few others she found truly close to her. She had stolen a book from a fire burning because she was curious about it and she hadn’t even given any thought of how that would affect her family. She was selfish for that reason. Not only that, but she had stolen food for numerous of times to satisfy her hunger without giving thought to who she stole the food from. And when she had gotten money from selling some chestnuts, she used that money to buy candy instead of giving it to her mother to buy more food. For all these reasons I find Liesel indefinitely selfish.

However, just as Elie Wiesel was, Liesel still had her good points. While at many times, it only showed how she care for herself and her own self preservation, there were other times when it showed that she cared for others and put their wellbeing in front of her as well. For example: when she had given out bread to the Jews. Although, she knew that if the SS soldiers found her that she would be severely punished she still had given bread out to them. Not only that, but once when she had gotten food she had shared it with her fellow friends. Not only that, but possibly the biggest important “good” thing she did was help hide Max. And this wasn’t just her, but her entire family. They knew the consequences for helping a Jew. They knew very well that they could have died and yet they still helped him. In a society where the most hated person was a Jew, they had decided to go along with their better ethics and helped Max. Because of this, I found a whole new respect for Liesel.

And also, because of this I found that these two books were very alike. Not only did they represent both halves of humanity but the both taught me to understand that not everyone in the world values self preservation as their top most priority. There are still people out there who value morals and ethics as well. And sometimes the good people might not be who you expect. These two books really reinstated by confidence in humanity.