“An American Childhood,” (a girl and her environment) and “The Book Thief” (Death and survivor)
Different authors wrote the stories though their setting is almost similar to each other. “An American Childhood,” (a girl and her environment) and “The Book Thief” (Death and survivor) were written after the periods of wars; mainly, after French Revolution and second world war respectively. In both stories, it involves young girls as the main character who learns to cope with the period thus causing impacts to their personality. In the Book of Thief, the story rotates within the life of Liesel Meminger living with her foster family in Germany and the other story “An American Childhood” describes the family life of Annie Dillard who lives in Pittsburgh. The two stories have an unusual connection with the environment and memories thus defining their unique and meaning characters in their stories.
First, I will discuss the character of Dillard as portrayed in the novel. Dillard at the age of thirties, she was among the people who were successful despite her tough life from the childhood. Dillard who grew in town of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, seems to have been distracted by the events of times till that it affects her imaginative life so much that in the original waft of the memoirs , some chapters on the antiquity of the town were intermingled with the chapters concerning her life directly. From the story, there is a unique connection between the Dillard and her environment mainly characters, which is shown in various occasions thus defined the life of Dillard. Dillard grew in the environment where one had to survive despite the struggle, torture and enmity between individuals. Dillard went to school like other children, church and treated as a captative by “A walking Man” but those challenges shaped her whole being, (Dillard, pp. 212). For instance, after the war she narrates her story saying that, one thing she learnt from the English people is hard work, she says, “Hard work bore fruit. This is what we learned growing up in Pittsburgh, growing up in the United States” (pp. 169). Therefore, through childhood and daily life, Dillard experienced awareness on which she grows to know her personality; thus, one can clearly say that, the environment of the Dillard which involved hard working people changed her life into a person she became as an artist.
Secondly, in the Book of Thief, Liesel Meminger is also a survivor of war in the Second world war and holocaust. “The book Thief” focuses on the lives of the Holocaust survivors thus, it discusses the life of Liesel who escaped death during the war, her discoveries from trauma and the new way of coping with life. One of the strangest relationships in this novel is the connection between humanity and deaths since is portrayed when the Death is the narrator and the book thief who is Liesel. In this, am going to discuss the relationship between Death and Liesel which is influenced by her surrounding during the war ear. Liesel encounters the mayhems of combat when loses her brother through deaths. As a result, she lives in emotional and psychological complications and trauma. Death seems to have a connection with humanity that it follows them everywhere especially during the war. Death says that, “I’m in most places at least once, and in 1943 I was just everywhere.” (Zusak 543). Thus, due to the dangers of Death, Liesel escapes deaths but lives with nightmares. These atrocities of war shape the basis of developing identity and destroying Liesel’s personality. Through this, Liesel discovers the destructive power of rehabilitation against trauma.
In other words, the stories are described at the first and third person voices. The stories describe the relationships between main characters, and environment though are based on the memories of the individuals during the war. The two stories seek to describe the effects of the environment or surrounding to the human’s character and life and how those events affects the personality of a person.