Friendship

There are many examples of friendship in both texts, “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak and “Othello” by William Shakespeare.  The friendships in each text are very different.  There are examples of people being good friends and there are also examples of people who pretend to be friends but really don’t care about each other.

The first example of a true friendship is between Liesel and Max in ‘The Book Thief’.  The best example of this friendship is when Max is sick, Liesel is constantly worrying about him.  When he is in the basement, only inches away from death, all Liesel does is pray for him to get better.  Liesel is always down in the basement keeping him company, even though he is asleep and doesn’t respond to what she is saying. He is sick for weeks and Liesel goes down to the cold basement every day for hours to read her book ‘The Whistler’ aloud to Max.  This shows the loyalty and genuine concern Liesel has for her friend Max.  

This friendship is not a one way street, Max writes a short book for Liesel. He spends days down in the basement painting picture and writing sentences in a short book which he gives to Liesel.  He names the book ‘The Standover Man’.  In this book Max describes how during his life many people have been good friends to him, Wenzel Gruber who used to stand over him after beating him in fights then turned into one of his best friends and kept him in hiding for over two years.  Max then goes on to speak about how his best friend and true standover man is actually Liesel. After days of hard work in the freezing basement Max gives the book to Liesel at night. Liesel loves the book he writes for her and keeps it for life.

These two occasions in the book really show how the friendship between Max and Liesel is real.