Film and Book The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne Essay

John Boyne's book "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" invites the readers to embark on an imaginative journey at two levels. At the first level, Boyne himself embarks upon an imaginative journey that explores a possible scenario in relation to Auschwitz. Bruno is a 9 year old boy growing up in a loving, but typically authoritarian German family in the 1930?s. His father is a

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a novel by John Boyne. This novel is set during World War 2 and explores themes such as prejudice, racism, war, innocence and friendship. What sets it apart from other novels is that it uses a third person limited point of view, and mostly depicts events as they are seen by a young and naïve boy. This was one of the main narrative conventions that engaged me in this novel.

John Boyne has created a sophisticated and meaningful novel in The Boy in the Striped

. What narrative structure does the author use to tell the story? John Boyne uses imagery in his book.

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 was the son of a Nazi commandant, but he had no idea of the horrors of the Holocaust. He was told not to go near the death camp his father was in charge of, but he did anyway. Bruno meet a Jewish boy named Shmuel at the camp and continued to visit him. They enjoyed each other’s company even though there was a fence in between them. One day Shmuel told Bruno that his dad went missing. Neither of the boys knew that he was actually murdered. They came up with a plan to sneak Bruno into the camp to help Shmuel find his dad. After Bruno gets into the camp they begin to search when alarms go off. The boys and other Jewish men get pushed into a room and ordered to take their clothes off. No one knows what’s going on. They are ordered into another room where they are gassed and die. Because of hate and intolerance against Jews, Shmuel was blocked off from the rest of the world and his friend. Bruno fought against that hate and intolerance by sneaking into a place where no one should be, to help a

The next day where its raining and extremely muddy Bruno went to meetup with Shmuel at the fence to go on the search for Shmuel’s father . Finally Bruno was on the opposite side of the fence , as he was sneaking around trying to blend in with other people he never saw nothing like that seeing everyone looking miserable and skinny.

Bruno Crawled under the fence, it was electric so his was extra carefull. After bruno went through the fence they both began to seach for Shmuel's father. At the very beginng of the search bruno saw how terribley they lived and how everyone was sick. During the seach the boys got hudled in with a group of men in a barrack. Rain begins to fall.

In the novel “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”, author John Boyne portrays childhood innocence

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008) follows a Nazi family who moves to the countryside while the father carries out an assignment at Auschwitz. At times heartwarming and other times brutal, it walks the line between dark and kitschy, offering a profound moral to its story while managing to seem irreverent. Bruno, a boy of eight years old, completes the twelve stages of the Hero’s Journey in a way that illustrates a thoughtful commentary on the interplay between ignorance and the truth. Ultimately, however, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an allegory about social boundaries and the consequences of transgressing them.

Through the study of the novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne, it is clear that the concerns and issues, as well as the style and structure of a text, are what determines the reader’s involvement. In addition, the issues of the past (particularly those about war) still remain concerns today. The issues amplified within The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas include detachment in family relationships which can lead to disastrous consequences, and the withholding of information from the youthful and innocent which can create dangerous situations. Along with these, is the main issue of the

Nelson Mandela once said, ‘no one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate….’ And such is perhaps the most imperative message of John Boyne’s hit novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Ultimately, Boyne’s construction of characters, specifically that of the central character, Bruno and those around him, are a gradual emphasis of the concept that hatred is a learned practice, not the natural state of humanity, and that it is innocence and compassion that will bring unity and equality to the human race.

Neither boy understands the situation he is facing, but Shmuel knows more because he witnesses the horrors every day. Bruno’s ignorance is reinforced by his wanting to visit Shmuel in the camp and suggesting he wears something different than the pyjamas in the morning if he doesn’t like them. During Bruno’s conversation with Shmuel, the reader learns about details of Shmuel’s life in the camp, the horrors Shmuel faces, while Bruno, gradually realises things are not right and chooses to dismiss most of Shmuel comments out of ignorance. As time passes, Bruno begins to wonder more and more why he and Shmuel live an opposite sides of the fence. As Bruno’s home life gets unhappier, with his Mum and Dad always fighting, Shmuel is getting sicker and skinnier.

The main characters in this story have different personalities and they represent the good and the bad in human beings. Bruno, the nine years old German boy, was an adventurous, curious and innocent boy like many other kids his age. Because of his age sometimes he was a little naive but overall I think he was a very smart boy. He showed us the importance of friendship and compassion after he met Shmuel at the concentration camp.

This point of view also leaves the viewer with little backstory or context, and lapses in time aren’t clearly defined, leaving the story choppy and seemingly incomplete. As the movie opens Bruno is playing in the streets of Berlin as he returns home to find his families belongings being packed away and is told his father, a soldier, has been promoted and the family will be moving with him to his new job in the countryside. After hurting himself at his new abode and being tended to by Pavel (who he believes to be a farmer), he learns that he used to be a doctor, and makes the assumption he chose to become a farmer because he was bad at it. When Bruno sneaks off to adventure he finds the farm that he can see from his window. He meets a boy, Shmuel, who he forms a tentative friendship with, that is until Bruno is left unsheltered with his tutor and exposed to tremendous amounts of propaganda and the camp is not a farm, but for Jews. When Shmuel worked in the home, Bruno gave him food, but when he caught talking to him he blames Shmuel who is then beaten. Soon after, Bruno’s Mother finds out from a soldier that the propaganda about the camps is fake, and the heavy smoke near their house is from the mass cremation of dead Jews. When she mentally deteriorates after learning what her husband does is one of the few glimpses into her personality. An unspecified amount of time passes and Bruno’s mother insists on leaving with the children. Bruno reconciles with