Milkweed Comparative Essay

Growling stomachs, loneliness, poverty, and tears gently rolling down the faces of almost everyone, this was how both Misha and Lili lived for a while. They were alone, with no family, no food, and all of this happens to them because of one thing; the fact that they are Jews. Misha fromthe novel Milkweed and Lili, a real survivor of the Holocaust, have many similarities, yet they are very different people.

First of all, these two Jews didn't understand completely what was happening. Misha didn't understand that the ghetto was a bad place when they were first going there, he didn't understand that birthday candles weren't going to burn the cake, nor that the Jackboots weren't his friends. On the other hand, Lili didn't know where she was. She thought that if she was good the nuns would tell her parents and her parents would take her home, she thought that her life of cruelty was normal and that all children lived this way. She didn't understand that none of this was true. As you can see, these two characters didn't understand a lot of what was going on and therefore were very similar, but they can also be considered very different.

As one difference, Lili knows about her family and herself, whereas Misha doesn't. Lili knows that her name is Lili while Misha was given his name by his friend Uri. In addition Lili knows her brother, her mother, and her father. However Misha doesn't know if he has any siblings, or who his parents are and if they're alive. Lili also knew her age and her brother's age while Misha didn't even know his own age. Obviously, Lili knows a lot more about her past than Misha does about his.

Another way that Misha and Lili are different is that Misha's story is fake, while Lili's story is true.  Misha's story seemed miserable, but to think that some of these things actually happened to children like Lili.  How terrible would it be if you knew someone that was happy to eat a piece of moldy bread? It wasn't fair to those poor people who had to suffer just because they were different.

Clearly these two exceptionally different characters also have a lot in common. Living with empty stomachs, without their parents, alone, less than ten years old; these poor kids had a rough time in their lives.