Summary
THE VISITOR written by Markus Frank Zusak
In May 1942, while the Second World War was at its peak the NSDAP were inspecting the basements of houses in German towns to see if they were suitable to serve as air-raid shelters.
They moved up and down Himmel Street while little Liesel is busy playing soccer, outside. Liesel was alert, once she realised that they would be raiding their basement, as well. She wanted to warn her parents, Rosa and Hans about the inspections, immediately.
She hatched a plan. She ran into another soccer player deliberately and injured her knee. That way, she had an excuse to go back home. Before the men reached their house, Hans told Max, the Jew man who was hiding in their basement, what was happening. He also asked everyone else to do nothing and pretend that all was well.
The officer who knocked on their door recognised Liesel as the ‘maniacal soccer player’ and teased her before going down to the basement. Max hid beneath the stairs, behind the drop cloths.
Three minutes passed. When the Nazi officer returned, he said that the basement wasn't suitable for shelter and merrily went his way. Max apologised for putting the family in such great danger.
The day is saved by the quick-thinking and resourceful, Liesel who took on a much more active role in maintaining their secret and keeping suspicion at bay.
BIOGRAPHY of Markus Frank Zusak
Markus Frank Zusak (born 23 June 1975) is an Australian writer. He is best known for The Book Thief and The Messenger (US title: I Am the Messenger), two novels for young adults which became international bestsellers. He won the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2014 for his contributions to young-adult literature published in the United States.
Life & Career
Zusak was born in Sydney, Australia. His mother Lisa is originally from Germany and his father Helmut is from Austria. They emigrated to Australia in the late 1950s. Markus is the youngest of four children and has two sisters and one brother. He attended Engadine High School and briefly returned there to teach English while writing. He studied English and history at the University of New South Wales, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education.
Zusak is the author of six books. His first three books, The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, and When Dogs Cry, released between 1999 and 2001, were all published internationally. The Messenger, published in 2002, won the 2003 CBC Book of the Year Award (Older Readers) and the 2003 NSW Premier's Literary Award (Ethel Turner Prize) in Australia and was a runner-up for the Printz Award in America.
The Book Thief was published in 2005 and has since been translated into more than 30 languages. The Book Thief was adapted as a film of the same name in 2013.
The Messenger (I Am the Messenger in the United States) was published in 2002 and was one of Zusak's first novels. This novel has won awards such as the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards: Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature.
In March 2016 Zusak talked about his unfinished novel Bridge of Clay. He stated that the book was 90% finished but that, "... I’m a completely different person than the person who wrote The Book Thief. And this is also the scary thing—I’m a different person to the one who started Bridge of Clay eight, nine years ago ... I’ve got to get it done this year, or else I’ll probably finally have to set it aside."
Works
The Underdog (1999)
Fighting Ruben Wolfe (2000), sequel to The Underdog
When Dogs Cry (2001), a.k.a. Getting the Girl; sequel to Fighting Ruben Wolfe
The Messenger (2002); US title: I Am the Messenger
The Book Thief (2005)
Bridge of Clay (2018), Pan Macmillan Australia
Awards
In 2014, Zusak won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association (ALA), which annually recognises an author and "a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature".
In 2006, Zusak was also the recipient of the Sydney Morning Herald's Young Australian Novelist of the Year Award.
THE VISITOR
Understanding the Text
A.
1. a. Liesel was trying to come up with a plan to excuse herself from the children’s game under some pretext and run back to her home and inform her parents about the NSDAP members coming down the street checking the basements in every house to check their viability for being turned into air-raid shelters.
She had to hatch a plan urgently because her parents were sheltering a Jewish man, Max in the basement and without Liesel’s information, her parents would totally be blindsided when the NSDAP came to their door and demanded to check the basement. The NSDAP, working under Hitler’s orders, wouldn’t have taken kindly either to a Jew in hiding or to the people who gave him shelter.
1. b. She had to make ‘it’ real because if the NSDAP members grew the slightest bit of suspicious from her actions, they would turn their house inside out and finally discover the Jew. Liesel realised that her best shot was maintaining all semblances of normalcy and somehow getting the information to her father.
2. a. At first, Mama had considered moving Max from the basement to Liesel’s room but then there was no time for that because the NSDAP were already at their door. Papa told them the only plan, given the situation should be to do nothing and receive the party members as naturally and cordially as they could.
2. b. Papa wanted them to pretend like they did not have “a care in the world” so that the NSDAP members who had come to inspect the basement in their house would not suspect that the Hubermanns had anything to hide.
3. a. Liesel and her parents were fond of Max. Her parents had decided to shelter a Jewish man on principle and had also grown to be fond of him. Of course, they also lived with the fear of discovery of their deed as well but the fact that the child in the family could empathize with Max’s fear and helplessness hiding in plain sight in a room with NSDAP members, shows the extent of their concern for Max.
3. b. We see the Hubermann concern for Max from the very outset. This was ever since Liesel’s throat dried up when she saw the NSDAP members coming down the road checking basements in every house. Papa’s immediate action and his act of maintaining a ruse with very high stakes is again proof of their fondness for Max who had almost become a family member.
B.
1. a. Max was holding a pair of rusty scissors, according to para 69, which could be turned into a stabbing weapon with the proper motivation and force. Max tells the family that he had never really meant to use them as a weapon but given the nervous state he was in, no one can be sure as to what he would have done had he been discovered by the Nazis.
1. b. Perhaps one could not blame Max even if he did use the scissors on the Nazi because in this context, Max would be desperate to do anything to survive for as long as is possible and escape the Nazi agenda of mass scale ethnic cleansing.
2. a. Liesel proves herself to be a clever and resourceful girl with courage and self control. She hatches a plan quickly so that she could slip away from the game with a legitimate reason for going back home. That way, she could warn her father of the imminent Nazi inspection. She tries to keep calm and convey the full information to her father.
2. b. Liesel partakes in her father’s charade of normalcy when the Nazis were inside their house inspecting the basement. Though her mind was assailed by images of Max crouching in terror, hiding from the Nazis, she was still able to function normally and keep her calm.
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