Vishnumolakala 1

Saaketh Vishnumolakala
Mrs. Barnes
Honors ELA
20 September 2015
The Book Thief vs. The Catcher in the Rye
Around the world, the life of a person never ran smoothly.
Nobody was just born with everything they needed to succeed in
life. Everybody had to get past obstacles and hurdles in life. In The
Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel is dropped of in the small city
of Molching where she has to start a new life with her new foster
parents. Her brother died and she would not see her mother ever
again. Liesel has to overcome nightmares and loneliness to fit into
the heart of Nazi Germany. Death narrates that Liesel meets and
befriends her neighbor Rudy Steiner, who worships the American
athlete Jesse Owens. Liesel fits in and has an adventurous couple
of years as her love and value of words increases as she grows.
Finally death, the last obstacle, wins and takes away everything
from Liesel Meminger. In The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger,

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Holden Caulfield gets expelled from Pencey High School and has
to go home on Wednesday. He leaves for Manhattan three days
earlier due to an altercation with his roommate. Over the next 40
hours Holden meets with different people and mourns the day
where he has to stand up to his parents. He sneaks into his parents
apartment to tell his sister Phoebe about what happened. The next
day Holden sends her sister a note saying he is leaving for good,
but Phoebe wants to come too. After Holden reflects on the idea of
leaving for good, Holden concludes otherwise. The story ends with
an emotional scene where Holden is in a joyful state as he watches
Phoebe ride the carousel. Through Plot, Character Development,
and Symbolism the texts support the theme that you must live in a
world as it is, not as you would like it to be.
Plot is an element in which both authors, Markus Zusak and J.D.
Salinger, use to better analyze the theme. Zusak uses plot to inform
us about the first time Liesel steps into Himmel Street. It took
nearly fifteen minutes to coax her from the car. It was the tall man
(Hans) who did it. Quietly. Then there was the gate next, which she

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clung to. A gang of tears trudged from her eyes as she held on and
refused to go inside (Zusak 28). Before Liesel met her foster
parents, Liesel, her brother and her mother were riding on a train to
their foster parents. Liesel, half-asleep, watches her brother die in
front of her. After death took him away, they buried his body and
moved on two days later. She has to start a new life all over. On
top of this she was never going to see her mother ever again. She
has to make a new living in Nazi Germany. Already the hardship of
life has hit Liesel Meminger and Liesel cant do anything about it,
she just has to move on and accept life as it will come.
Salinger uses plot as well, to steer Holdens life in which he has
to battle obstacles that just wont stop coming at him. I left all the
foils and equipment and stuff on the subway. It wasnt entirely my
fault. I had to keep getting up to look at this map The other
reason I wasnt at the game was because I was on my way to say
good-by to old Spencer, my history teacher He knew I wasnt
coming back to Pencey (Salinger 6). In the first chapter Holden
already indicates that he has pursued an aimless, self-destructive

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path. After forgetting the fencing teams equipment on the subway,

Holden chooses humor and argues that he is not responsible for the
equipment. He has also gotten expelled from very expensive
Pencey high school because he was failing in four different classes.
Holden essentially explains himself as a perpetual failure. Now
Holden has to move on and continue onward in life as he cant
change anything to get back into Pencey.
Zusak uses character development to analyze the change in
Liesel Meminger. She was just about to leave when a realization
struck her. The cookies. Theyd been there for weeks (Zusak 460).
Liesel Meminger started stealing books from Ilsa Herrmann after
Liesel got mad at Ilsa towards her wealth. The book stealing went
on for a while; until Liesel started thinking that Ilsa is letting Liesel
steal on purpose Them on one afternoon Liesel found a plate
stacked with cookies on Ilsas desk. She attempted to steal it, but
Ilsa walked into the room at that moment. They had a conversation
about how all the books belonged to Ilsa and her dead son. Liesel
was touched by the fact that the books all belonged to Ilsa and not

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the mayor. After that incident their friendship was renewed. Even
though the time when Ilsa and Liesel were not friends, life, words
and books brought them back together.
Salinger also uses character development to better identify the
central idea. What I thought Id do, I thought I might go down
and see what old Mal Brossard was doing. But all of a sudden, I
changed my mind. All of a sudden, I decided what Id really do, Id
get the hell out of Pencey right that same night and all. I mean not
wait till Wednesday or anything. I just didnt want to hang around
anymore. It made me too sad and lonesome (Salinger 49). Holden
in an instant changes his mind from going to go meet with
somebody to getting far and away from Pencey. This gives the
impression that Holden is extremely rash in his decisions.
Although Holden dislikes his school, the rashness of his decision
clearly indicates immatureness in his character and that he is
unsure at what he wants to do in life. Holden was always sad and
lonesome and acted like the odd man out in the world. He was also
extremely judgmental about everybody and everything. He

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couldnt choose what was to come or not come, life had to lead
him there.
In the book thief Hanss accordion represents a symbol towards
his debt remark to Erik Vandenburg. He was the friend who saved
his life. To repay his dead friend, Hans takes in his son, Max
Vandenburg, to hide him from the Nazis. The accordion was also
important to Liesel, because it was a remembrance of hans, Max,
Rudy, Ilsa, Rosa and everybody who played a significant role in
her life. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses
and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a
cigarette sloucked on his lips. He even made a mistake and laughed
in lovely hindsight. The bellows breathed and the tall man played
for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken
from the stove (Zusak 538). This was a reminder of the rare good
days that Liesel had with her papa in Nazi Germany.
As the title of the book, Salinger uses this symbol with close
inspection explaining what Holden really wanted to do with his
life. In chapter 22, when Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to do

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with his life, Holden replies with his image, from the song, of a
catcher in the ry. Holden imagines a field of rye perched high on
a cliff, full of children romping and playing. He says he would like
to protect the children from falling of the edge of the cliff by
catching them if they were on the verge of tumbling over, but
Phoebe points out that Holden misunderstood the line and is
thinking of it the wrong way. All in all, Holden wanted to prevent
others from what happened to him in his lonely and sad life.
While some may argue that these two pieces of text do not
support the theme, they dont understand the hardships both Liesel
and Holden had to go through to get to where they were by the
end. Rudy Steiner slept. Mama and Papa slept. Frau Holtzapfel,
Frau Diller. Tommy Mller. All sleeping. All dying (Zusak 498).
Liesel was the only person alive on Himmel Street. She lost
everybody. Everybody died from the bombs that came down
Himmel Street that night. Liesel has gone through so much in her
short time in Molching, and times were getting better. But now she
lost everything in about a couple seconds. Sometimes life just has a

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plan for you. Death has a plan for you. J.D. Salinger uses similar
situations in his book as well. I felt so damn happy all of a
sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was
near bawling. I felt so damn happy (Salinger 275). This is Holden
gives Phoebe a note saying he will start his journey moving west,
but Phoebe wanted to come to. Holden suddenly changes his mind
and does not want to leave. They both travel to the nearby park.
Holden wants Phoebe to ride on the carousel. Phoebe rides on the
carousel and this gives pure joy to Holden, for no such reason. This
little scene was the first joyful scene in Holdens sad, lonesome
life. With the courage of Phoebe, Holden went back home and
things went all right with his parents. But a couple months later,
Holden gets terribly sick, in which he will not illiterate on as the
book ends here. Life always will have an answer. Not always the
best, like Holdens here, but it has a plan.
No one person can change your life, unless it is your actions
that affect it. You just have to live life as it is. You cant take back
what you already did. You just have to move on. Liesel nor Holden

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chose their life. A matter of fact, I think both of them would have
wished for something more in their life. Holden would wish for
more respect and not always feel like he is not wanted in the world.
Liesel would have wished for to know when the bombs would
have fallen to save her only family, Himmel Street. Life was never
easy for Holden or Liesel. The authors evaluate the texts, by using
the plot to better demonstrate the theme of the books. They use
character development to support and build the central idea.
Finally, they use symbolism to explain to us some of the key
factors in small and little things that affect the outcome of both
lifes of the characters. No one ever chose their own life, they just
had to follow what life chose for them.

Works Cited

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Zusak, Markus. Book Thief. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Salinger, J. D., E. Michael Mitchell, and Lotte Jacobi. The
Catcher in the Rye. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.