The Book Thief

P: What role does the main character play in the story?

R: Leisel represents a girl who is very different from the rest of most young girls in Germany. For one thing she has managed to escape the grasp of Death a number of times. Death continues to encounter her; however, she is never the victim in a number of different circumstances. This is why Death has become infatuated with her tale and continues to carry her diary around with him. Liesel is the one girl who had the ability to change her own destiny, or in this case she proceeded to write her own destiny. In a time where a man like Hitler is using words very good words to make people do very bad things, Leisel proceeds to steal these words back. Wether it be from grave diggers or a burning pile of books. She thieves back the words that Hitler has stolen from her. She uses the words she learns to make an everlasting friendship with a Jewish man, to read stories to frightened neighbors in bomb shelters, and finally to write down her destiny in the pages of a tattered diary. Leisel plays the role of the young girl who stood out in a sea of tragedy and misfortune. She represents the power of words and what they can do for a person. In the end of the book, it was words that saved her life as she sat in the basement writing in her diary while her friends and neighbors were obliterated by falling bombs from above. Death chose to tell Leisel's tale because of the unique life she had to offer at the face of death and a shockingly corrupt society.