The World Around Us

[Holly]

At the very end of the novel, Liesel thinks about one of her books, The Last Human Stranger, and remembers a passage, "The sun stirs the earth. Around and around, it stir us, like stew." (Zusak p.g 519) On page 520, the author continues, " She decided there was a word missing from her quote. The world is an ugly stew, she thought. It's so ugly I can't stand it." I thought about this for a bit, I concluded, that the world isn't ugly, it's the people who fill the earth that make it ugly. Humans create their own war. The world that Liesel lived in, is completely different than the world we live in now because of people's decisions and choices. Do you have any opinions on this topic? 

[Sara S.]

I believe that people's decisions are certainly the driving factor in the way our world is today. Every event that happens in our world is the product of one or even millions of decisions. However, I disagree with Liesel's description of the "stew" or humans as ugly. Of course humanity can be poisonous, hateful, and destructive. But people like Rudy Steiner and Hans and Rosa Hubberman prove that there are people out there who will be your parter in crime, teacher, and valiant defender. The "stew" of humans, in my opinion, is a perfectly balanced soup.

[taylor]

When one person in a group makes a decision it influences the rest of the group. So yes, people have the ability to create an ugly world that has the can influence others in the same way. That concept, however, can go both ways. In Liesel's shoes she looked out to see her home destroyed, which could reflects her perception of 'the world being ugly.' Humans have the capability to lash out at others, as they have the same capability to nurture one another. I agree with what Sara wrote, that when you stack up the mindsets of those who make the world an 'ugly place' and those who help one another, their is a delicate balance between the two. With that said, humans have the ability to change to change others perceotions and create mutations of how we depict the world.

[Madeleine Stewart]

I think that the people do create an ugly atmosphere for the world. We poison it with our pain and revenge. When we lash out it causes the ugly to happen. We do start our own battles because people are gonna have different views. Really it is quite an ugly stew but it is not always bad. It kinda also depends on your view.

[elizabeth miller]

When people makes stews it will have different ingredients to make it what it is. The same could be said about the world, every person being an ingredient. Some are going to be better than others, some will over power, others a perfect balance. If someone has had a extremely sheltered life they might see the world as a place filled with rainbows and butterflies. Someone like Liesel who has been exposed to pain and suffering might have a view tainted with anger towards the world. The stew as she calls it is going to appear different to each person depending on what they have been through and how they have dealt with that emotion.

[faithadler]

I certainly agree that it is the people within the world who form what our world is like. During the Holcaust, I believe Liesel saw a lot of the hate that the world had to offer. So much that it encapsulated her, and blinded her with all of the ugliness within the people of this world that are lead by anger, and hatred. I certainly could understand why Liesel simply characterized the world as an ugly stew, and I believe that if we were all in the position that Liesel was in, we would also consider the world and ugly stew. I believe that now, however, yhe world is what we make of it. Perhaps some of us believe the world is against us, and that it is an ugly stew. But perhaps there ate also some of us who think quite the opposite. I suppose this is a quedtion that id quite difficult to answer from only one point of view.

[jackh]

I agree with what you said, and I wish I wrote about it sooner. What I will add is that it's the people like Liesel and Max who changed the world and made it what it is today. Like Maxine Kingston said, "In a time of destruction, create something". In Max's story, Hitler's "forest" of words were creating massive amounts of destruction, and over time the tree from Liesel, who spoke up against everyone else, fell and made a lasting impact in the people's literal and mental view of the forest. Times like now (in real life) everyone's thoughts and words are focused on degrading and destroying others, when what would help the most are instead words that build up the right ideals instead of smashing the opposing ones. Though it seams right, and the intentions are good, it just sets the scene for more destruction and tells people that it's okay to blast hatred, so long as it's for the "right cause". In my opinion, the best way is to just advertise your own cause honestly and debate wholesomely so that people can make their own decision. Obviously, in Liesel's time, this wasn't a choice, but the world we live in now gives us a great opportunity to change how we think and not repeat the mistakes we made in the past. I think this is part of the message the author intended us to decipher from the text.