Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Why do you think Hans's letters were so brief in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak?

Hans Hubermann's letters in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak were brief for two reasons. The first is that Hans was not a well-educated man. When Liesel is first learning to read, Hans is committed to helping her, but knows his own limitations in this regard. He himself finds reading and writing challenging. A second, and more significant, reason Hans writes short letters during his time in the second World War is that he does not want to worry or frighten his wife and foster daughter. When he is called to serve in the military for the second time, he is given an assignment that is an obvious punishment for his sympathetic actions towards Jews. He is assigned to a clean up crew of sorts. These men go into areas during air raids to put out fires, search for survivors, and so forth. Hans would not want to share his day to day activities with Liesel or Rosa because his day to day activities are mostly horrific.

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