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Flashbacks
Foil
Explanation and Analysis—Liesel and Death:
Death seems to be fascinated with Liesel in part because she is his foil. They both see themselves as thieves, even if what they take is freely given. Liesel steals books. She thinks of them as contraband. However, by the end of the novel, it is clear that most of Liesel's "contraband" belongs to to Ilsa Hermann, who wants to share her books with the girl. Death, on the other hand, steals souls. They would all eventually have been his to carry away in any case, and he is not directly responsible for any of their deaths. Still, he seems to feel like a thief when he takes a soul too soon. Liesel's small-scale thefts draw Death's attention because he recognizes her impulse to torture herself for taking what was already hers.
Death and Liesel also share the fact that they are storytellers. Death narrates The Book Thief as Zusak writes it, but he reveals that his narration is based on Liesel's self-authored memoir of the same title. Both of them are deeply transformed by the trauma of World War II. They use words and poetic language to process their feelings about what they have endured and witnessed. Death does not plagiarize from Liesel; rather, he tells his own version of the same events that she records. As double narrators, Death and Liesel demonstrate how perspective shapes people's understanding of the world. Everything for Death takes place on a huge, global, historic scale. During the Battle of Stalingrad, for instance, Death is focused on the battlefield and its place in history. Liesel's experience of this same battle is centered on Himmel Street and Frau Holtzapfel's grief for her son who dies in the battle. Death sees Liesel as a kindred spirit who is always trying to make sense of her life, but whose consciousness is much more limited and specific than his. Neither perspective is more important than the other. Together, these two storytellers create a narrative that shuttles back and forth between broad and specific, historical and personal.
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Foil
Explanation and Analysis—Liesel and Max:
Liesel and Max are foils, united in their salvation by Hans Hubermann's kindness and his basement. Both of them arrive on the Hubermanns' doorstep because there is nowhere else in the world they can go. Hans patiently sits with Liesel whenever she wakes from her recurring nightmare about her brother's death. He teaches her to read as a way of escaping the nightmare. The reading they do together leads her to a lifelong fascination with stories, and she eventually turns the Himmel Street basement into her own writing workshop. This is where she is when Himmel Street is bombed, and it is the reason she is the sole survivor who was present when the bombing occurred. She thus owes her life not only to the basement, but also to Hans's kindhearted reading lessons.
Hans's kindness also saves Max's life, both directly and indirectly. It is part of why the Hubermanns decide to hide him to begin with. The kindness Liesel learns from Hans becomes instrumental in Max's will to live through a horrible time in his life. After Hans gives some bread to a Jewish man being marched through Molching to Dachau, he curses his kindness for drawing attention to his family and endangering Max. It is true that when Max flees the Hubermanns' basement, he is eventually arrested and sent to Dachau himself. However, Hans's kindness turns out to save Max just the same as Liesel: had Max stayed on Himmel Street, he may have died in the bombing that killed Hans and Rosa. There is no guarantee that the basement could have kept both Liesel and Max safe from the falling rubble.
The main thing accounting for the difference between Max and Liesel's experiences is that Max is Jewish and Liesel is not. Even though Liesel's father is rumored to have been a Communist (another category of people who faced persecution under Hitler), she can shrug off her father's beliefs in a way Max cannot and should not have to shrug off his heritage. Because Liesel can blend in with the other residents of Himmel Street, she has access to fresh air, community, resources, and many other freedoms that are unavailable to Max. She can find small ways to resist authority without drawing attention to herself. Resistance is far more dangerous for Max. He endures years as a fugitive, and then he endures torture in a concentration camp. Liesel endures a lot of suffering and loss, but Max unequivocally endures worse. The resonances between their two experiences make it all the more obvious how extremely anti-Semitism shapes Max's life.
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