Death In John Steinbeck's The Book Thief

The Book Thief is narrated by Death himself. Throughout his narration, Death is found to be extremely literal and true to all his thoughts and the emotions that someone like Death would never appear to have. Death is always around us, even though he may be able to avoidable at certain times in people’s lives. Death is a very proper narrator considering the setting of the book, World War 2. People say that Death and war are like best friends, therefore it would only make sense if he was the one to narrate the novel. There is also obvious character development from Death in the novel. The reason he tells this story is because he sees all the battles that humans have gone through in order to make it out in the world. This narration is his way of expressing that human kind is worth it, despite the mix of beautiful and ugly. For example, Death often sees the ugly and the beautiful in someone like Rosa, Liesel’s foster mother. He sees the ugly in her most of the time through her often very free and inappropriate language. However, he also sees the beautiful side of her. Rosa states, “What did you do with my hairbrush, you stupid Saumensch, you little thief? I've told you a hundred times to leave that thing alone, but do you listen? Of course not!” (332) On the outside, this may appear cruel, unnecessary, and ugly. …show more content…
I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.” (491) Throughout the book, Death seems to realize that in order for humans to be humans, they must have the bad and the good. Otherwise, there would be nothing remarkable about those humans that are nice all the time. Death realizes the great effort it takes for people to bring out the beautiful side in themselves all the time and that it is a special character trait that makes humans and love so exceptional. All in all, this is one of the main things that he believes makes humans worth it, even with the