Characterization Of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

The Holocaust was a terrible and depressing time during history. There were millions of people recklessly murdered, women and children included, just because of their religion, or because one person decided that he didn’t like them, or that they were a threat. They were thrown into concentration camps where all they did was suffer, work, and eventually, be killed. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas follows a boy whose father was a commandant of Auschwitz. Auschwitz was the largest, and most famous, of the death camps the Nazi’s (people who followed Hitler, the leader of the Holocaust). The boy, Bruno, meets a boy named Shmuel that lives in Auschwitz. Bruno and Shmuel soon become friends, and decide to go on a ‘final adventure’ together to try

About a year later Bruno’s mom decided that moving there was not the best decision and she wanted to move back to their old house in Berlin. Bruno was devastated by that idea and the thought of leaving his new friend. That is when he finds out that Shmuel’s father had gone missing and he needs to find him. Just then he tells Bruno about it. Bruno then agrees that he will sneak into the camp to help him find Shmuel’s father.

After that day, Bruno goes to the forest every day to find Shmuel. One day, Bruno saw Shmuel in his house polishing the glasses for his father’s birthday. He holds Shmuel’s hand and said "Our hands, they 're so different. Look!"(167). When Bruno holds Shmuel’s hands, immediately he noticed the differences between them. One is healthy, fat hands but certainly not fat for a nine year old and the other hands just talk about other stories,that is about how hard of a Jewish people at Auschwitz.At Auschwitz,Jews live in a really rough living condition,they need to live in a confined space.Despite their visible differences, Bruno still accepts Shmuel as a friend. However, although they accept each other’s different physical features, but there are more struggles waiting in this friendship.

Limitations of the movie include the Jewish child’s lifestyle inside of the concentration camp. The largest differences is the fact that the Jewish boy was able to wander off by himself in order to escape the harshness of his destinies lifestyle. The boy in the striped pajamas would certainly not have been able to wonder as he pleased, which leads to the fact that there was a large lack of guards on the camp. Guards during the Holocaust were very important in order to keep rules enforced; however, there were not many guards throughout the movie who were truly seen as evil and rule enforcing. Not only did the previously stated limitations contribute to the inaccuracy of the movie, but the largest limitation includes the fact that the Jewish boy, Shmuel, would not be alive due to the fact that he was not older than fifteen years. Concentration camps did not allow children under the age of fifteen to be given their lives due to the fact that they were seen as “useless.” If the movie, The Boy in The Striped Pajamas was thoroughly accurate, then the movie would not exist due to the fact that the Jewish boy would not be alive, which creates the largest problem of the whole movie when analyzing it for accuracy.

The soldier treated the Jews, including Shmuel who was only 9 years old, very harsh. This builds a frightening mood for the reader. When Bruno and Shmuel are in the concentration camp they are starting to realize that their plan was a terrible idea. They are becoming nervous and don’t know what to do. They are sensing danger. “Don’t worry Shmuel. No matter what happens you will always be my best friend. Then he had the urge to squeeze his tiny hand. They hugged each other and started to cry” (page 212). This is important because it builds a mood that makes the reader want to cry. When they are holding hands in the gas chamber, Bruno and Shmuel were talking in a tone that made the reader understand exactly how they were feeling. They were in a terrifying moment which made the reader nervous for them. The writer made it very suspenseful. In The Boy And The Striped Pajamas, John Boyne was able to use narrative techniques to make the story more interesting add to the add emotion behind it. One way he did that was by using the tone of the build to build a mood for the

Bruno sees him there and offers him some food. In the book, Shmuel is very reluctant to take the food from Bruno, whereas in the film Shmuel takes the food as soon as he is offered it. In the novel, when Bruno offers Shmuel some chicken, Shmuel says, “I can’t, he’ll [Lieutenant Kotler] come back, I know he will.” The change in the film can be connected to the change in Shmuel’s appearance. Because Shmuel isn’t very skinny in the film, something else needs to show evidence that he is very hungry and desperate for food. This is perfectly shown in the kitchen scene when Shmuel quickly takes the food from Bruno.

Friendship is a basic human need, especially for nine year old boys living their childhood. For Bruno who is lonely, bored out of his mind and could not find friends his age to play with and Shmuel a Jewish boy entrapped in a brutal concentration camp, their friendship is one of the only things that can spark a little happiness and lighten up their spirit. The boys meet in the least possible place – the periphery of Auschwitz concentration camp, where one is imprisoned and the other is the son of the Nazi commandant in charge. Although they are meant to see each other as enemies as a Jew and Nazi, there is no hatred between Bruno and Shmuel. They simply see each other as another kid to talk to out of the loneliness of Auschwitz. As the book

Bruno is an 8 year old boy, whose determination and courage is one of the numerous things that makes him one of the most dependable charters within the novel. Bruno is shown to be particularly vulnerable of his surroundings and what was going on throughout this time. His connection and willpower to be able to make a friend in the most unlikely area and conditions, he sees an opportunity and turns it into an improbable and prohibited friendship that has many twists and turns and uncontrolled concecuences. After meeting Shmuel a young 8 year old boy, who appears to have a matching birthday to Bruno, they form a tight and loving friendship. Shmuel is undernourished and appears to be extremely pale, bringing the readers to understand the vulnerability of the

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas One of the main ideas in the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas directed by Mark Herman is that friendship breaks all barriers, no matter the circumstances. This is conveyed through the characters Bruno, a naive Christian boy who loves exploring, and whose father is a head officer in Hitler’s army. And his unexpected friend Shmuel, a Jewish boy who lives in a concentration camp on the opposite side of the forest that Bruno and his family live at. This is a very unusual friendship , but because of the two boy’s naive and kind hearts, they physically and emotionally break every barrier in their way that stops them from being best friends. In this Film it begins with Bruno and his family living securely in Berlin,

Bruno likes going to meet Shmuel as much as he can and also loves bringing him food, talking and asking questions about his unfortunate situation and his seclusion behind a fence. Although Bruno does often say some silly and selfish things, Shmuel manages to contain himself out of respect. One example is when Bruno asks him why he wears pyjamas all day and Shmuel replies that are the soldiers that they took all their clothes away. Bruno then says: “My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away.” This sort of dialogue shows how naïve, ignorant and unaware were the young people like Bruno about the political situation of their time and about the segregation of Jewish people and their extermination and

He was dressed in striped pajamas that Bruno was familiar with seeing through his bedroom window. The two began to talk and Bruno returned every day to see Shmuel, his new friend. During their conversations, the two were surprised to learn that they shared a birthday. The boys talked about how they had each found their way to this new place. Shmuel explained that his family had to move into one room with another family, eleven people total, on the other side of the wall that the soldiers built. After a few months there, soldiers forced them into trucks and onto a train with no doors. When they arrived at the camp, Shmuel and his few family members were separated from his mother. The text states that “Shmuel looked very sad when he told this story and Bruno didn’t know why; it didn’t seem like such a terrible thing to him, and after all much the same thing had happened to him.” Bruno struggled to understand the extend of Shmuel’s suffering and the poor quality of life that people experienced on the other side of the fence.

I can infer several things about Shmuel form the dialogue in paragraphs 20-30. One thing I can infer form Shmuel is he obeys his laws and is afraid of Lieutenant Kotler. In paragraph 20 it states, "He told me not to move from this seat or there'd be trouble." This tells me that Shmuel is terrified to move at all or he knows there would be a big consequence.

Shmuel could be described as a quiet boy who was

In the last scenes Shmuel is worried because his father has gone missing so Bruno decides to help Shmuel look for his father. Bruno wants to make up for letting Shmuel down. Bruno dig under the fence to get into the camp and he disguise with one of the stripped uniforms to look like Shmuel. The boys decide to go into one of the cabins to look for Shmuel’s father. At that moment the Nazi soldiers came in the cabin to collect everyone. Shmuel and Bruno got stuck in between the crowd. They were taken to another cabin. It started raining; Bruno thought they were being taken somewhere else to wait for the rain to stop. The Nazi soldiers ordered everyone to remove their clothing. They were told they were only going to take a “shower.” Bruno and

Shmuel, the Jewish boy, was the representation of injustice, fear and sadness. Although he was aware that the living situation in the concentration camp were not right he never wanted to talk about it probably because of his fear to the Nazis. But he also represents