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Striped Pyjamas

Decent Essays

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Describe a theme or idea presented in the text. Explain how this idea has affected you. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne is a very powerful, touching story with many important themes. The book is set in Auschwitz, Poland in the early 1940s during a time where there was a lot of racism and many innocent people were killed. This essay will argue that an important theme in this novel is that innocent people shouldn’t be punished. John Boyne shows this theme with Pavel, the Jews being treated horribly in the concentration camps and Shmuel and Bruno. The most effective way the theme of innocent people shouldn’t be punished is shown with Shmuel and Bruno being killed. Bruno and Shmuel had become best friends over the months Bruno was living in Auschwitz, even though they were different races. Bruno and Shmuel are taken into the gas chambers in the concentration camp and when the text states “Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel’s hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go,” we can see the strength and innocence of their friendship. This quote shows us how Shmuel and Bruno were punished just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were innocent children whose friendship overcame racism and were killed for no reason. It gives us an insight into how sad and unnecessarily people are punished because of racism and power. …show more content…

When the text states, “all he could see was two different types of people, either happy, laughing, shouting soldiers in their uniforms or unhappy, crying people in their striped pyjamas,” we can see the difference between the two races and how badly the Jews were treated by the German soldiers. This quote helps us understand how the innocent Jews were punished by being put into concentration camps where they were treated horribly and

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