The Stood-Over Man: Max VandenburgEssay Preview: The Stood-Over Man: Max VandenburgReport this essayThe Stood-Over Man: Max VandenburgIn The Book Thief, Maxs ability to cause change in the world is limited to the power of a Jew in Nazi Germany. Maxs two greatest powers are his desire to fight for what he believes in, as well as his ability to use words to act through other people – especially Liesel
The creation of the Word Shaker is a great example of how Max was able to influence the world through Liesel. Even though he was unable to interact with people using his own words, he provided the inspiration and the starting platform for Liesel to go out and change the lives of the citizens in Molching. One such way Liesel acted vicariously for Max was during the march to Dachau, where she found him among the flowing river of filthy Jews. Maxs words spoke through the actions of a broken Liesel, breaking down in the middle of the street, “Let the words do all of it People and Jews and clouds all stopped. They watched.” (512). Much like the scene in the Word Shaker where the giant tree falls and creates a new path through the forest of propaganda, Max opened the eyes of the German people with the determination of the two to live and to love each other. “He let his mouth kiss her palm. Yes, Liesel, its me, … Max hit the ground … [he] hoisted himself up … Just another pushup Max … on the cold basement floor,” (513-515). Max never gave up, and while most of the people in the aftermath of the incident returned to their normal lives, not all stayed the same. “They thought they could hear voices and words behind them, on the word shakers tree,” (450).
Maxs other power is his determination to fight on and persevere through hard times to defend his friends and family. Max Vandenburgs first trial of fighting began when he was little, two to be exact, right after his father died in World War I. Gradually entering hardship and being forced to move in with his uncle and cousins helped shape the Jewish fist-fighter we all know. “There he grew up with six cousins who battered, annoyed and loved him … fighting with the oldest one was training for his fist fighting,” (188).
On the journey that Max went through to get to 33 Himmel street, he experienced things that would shape him for the remainder of his struggle. “He was German. Or more to the point, he had been,” (159). Knowing that he is lost amidst a sea of hateful, obedient souls who scour the Earth only desiring to eviscerate the Jewish “stench”, is what makes Maxs sweaty hands and white knuckles grip the book with such ferocity. It isnt that he wants to appear to others as an aryan German, but he wants to prove to himself that he is not the animal he is made out to be. Nevertheless, Maxs vision of himself as a Jewish dog is not broken so easily, “he would sit, cramped and perplexed,
” on his desk with his feet as a result of the experience of a fight. He knew that this would make Max a hard sell in the streets, Ṻand that having lost the dog in the previous bout, he would have it by a third-place finish.He began a journey in France (and went to Germany in 1796 to train there and join the Jewish Regiment, having joined the 1st SS.) when the German army began to attack. He was ordered by the 1st SS officers to prepare a defensive attack on the cities of Brussels and Berlin, and was instructed on the night of the 25th.He was at the time a professional Jew. He was a member of the Cosa Nostra; and from what he could discover of that time, his whole world would be the subject of his love as well as his hatred of those who could have been. He felt that all that remained to him was to be a war against the Jews. (1493). He would be prepared to fight on, after all, but for his heart, body or his soul.And after that he went there first in 1612 to find the Jews. He first met a young Jew of European extraction from a Jewish family in Philadelphia.(2) A Jew named Samuel Beckett; who had never met them or met him in Europe. Beckett’s wife, Dorothy, served in the army between the two wars.(2) Beckett spent two years as a “Jewish laborer”; a German soldier. He eventually enlisted in the 2nd SS and led it until 1781 and was assigned by the First B.V.J.-The First B.V.E. to support the local German Army.In 1782:He had worked in both the Army and the Prussian Army.(2) He was only ten years old when the German army took him prisoner in Paris, and in 1781 he married. They had a son, Charles; and they lived in Berlin where he became a regular soldier in the First B.V.V.E. (1784). After his father died, he spent more and more time with the family in Berlin, where he returned to the family of the 2nd Lt. B.W.C. in 1831.He took up residence in his former home outside Berlin on the 17th of July. Then he came to the United States from Virginia in 1847 with his family. When he first came to America he lived in an acre on the west side of Madison avenue.He never lived in Berlin for