7 Reasons Why Death Is Better Than Humans

In this article I will state 7 reason why The Book Thief's Death is better than we are as a people.

1. Humans are Thieves of Joy not Death

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People believe that Death is the one who ends the life. They believe that Death is the end of joy and the end of life on our earth. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Death says “At some point in time I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away” (Zusak, 4). Death is saying that at the point in life when we finally die he will be there and carry our troubled souls gently away. in a character Analysis by Shmoop he is seen as an employee with a job to do, he does his job well and needs to do it.

2. Death Doesn't Choose

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When people think about death or when someone close to them dies the first thing they think is that it was not fair and it shouldn’t have happened. In the book Death says “I'm nothing if not fair” (Zusak, 3). Death is fair, he does not choose who dies. He doesn’t come and collect until people are ready to go. People however, especially in the time period of the book would kill the wounded or leave them to die. They would kill children and even attempted to kill off a group of people do to their religion. An article by CliffNotes explains that he struggles to understand how humans can do these horrible and atrocious things to each other, but also be capable of such beauty.

3. Reason #3

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Death is the end of life. Eventually everybody dies. People die when their bodies stop functioning. Death does not kill people. In the first few pages of the book he tells the reader “You are going to die” (Zusak, 3). Dying is not a surprise for humans we all know we will eventually die we just don’t know when. Death comes and collects our souls and when he collects he does it gently. It is merely his job he cares for the tortured souls and tries to comfort them. People could blame Death for the fact that people die, but he isn’t the one who kills, people are. In a shmoop article Death is seen as depressed by his job, and who wouldn't be. He uses dark humor to cheer himself up so that he can do his never ending job.

4. Everyone Dies

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Death like many of us has a job to do. His job is just a little unconventional, he collects souls. He collects thousands a day. That is his job and he is used to doing it, he has been doing it for thousands of years. In the book Death says “It kills me sometimes, how people die” (Zusak, 464). However sometimes especially during the time period of this book during World War II, he sees the horrific way people die especially by the hands of another person, with a weapon made for killing, he can’t handle it. According to CliffNotes he uses humor to cope with the horrible things he experiences daily.

5. Death Only Collects

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People understandably hate dying. They hate the thought of death. Those who think of Death as a creature who comes and takes souls are probably curious what he looks like and, if he were to be asked he would respond "You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue" (Zusak, 307) Death is the end of living and people think he does it and he enjoys his job, he doesn’t. People cause people to die, Death is just there when it happens. In another article by Shmoop it once again says he uses the type of dark humor which we could see as horrible to cope with the horrible things people do to one another.

6. Newsflash, Death Doesn't Kill People

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If we did not kill each other and we didn’t die death would not exist, and he would never touch us. Sadly however we do die and at this time period many people died at the hands of others, it wasn’t fair, but it happened and we can’t forget it. In the book Death says “I am a result” (Zusak, 6). He is right, he doesn’t choose who lives and dies and often times we have. During wars soldiers kill to survive. Doctors save people who otherwise would die. Death doesn’t chose he does his job and moves on. in his character analysis he s seen as an employee, he is assigned a task and he completes it.

7. Death is Afraid of Us

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Death is as horrified of us as we are of him. In the book the final thing he says, the last line of the book is “I am haunted by humans” (Zusak, 550). The entity that humans are horrified of to the point that they don’t want to think about him is afraid and horrified of humans. He has been around for thousands of years hoping people will change, but people never do. People fight meaningless wars and millions of people die in them. They kill each other for no reason they harm each other’s families. They fight and they kill and Death doesn’t understand why, but yet he still feels remorse and comforts those who have died. According to his character analysis, his personality is like this so that he can manage and continue on with his work.

Works Consulted