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The Boy In The Striped Pajamas Literary Analysis

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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is one of John Boyne’s most famous novels. It is a complex story regarding the friendship between two boys that meet through the fence of a concentration camp in Poland during World War II. It is a story which… . However, what makes The Boy in the Striped Pajamas such a powerful story is the focus on the relationship between the two innocent boys rather than examining the larger, complex problem of the Holocaust. In this novel, there are a number of themes and messages that author shows, such as friendship, family, social classes, and the life of victims at times of war. Innocence and ignorance another theme, based on the individual relationship of two boys (Bruno and Shmuel) is one of the most important theme …show more content…

The conversation between Bruno and Shmuel when they first meet and their surprise at how ridiculous each other’s name are shows that they are from different places but that they share a common sense of childlike humor at encountering a different way of life. This innocent perspective of the boys allows the readers to chanel more emotions through the horror of the Holocaust as though readers are also innocence and childlike. If the narrator or the perspective of the story was mature enough or like Bruno’s father (Nazi soldier), The readers will naturally start reading the story by having prejudiced mind without innocence, which would have made the story even more complicated and hard to get the author's message across. Bruno’s sister Gretel for example, becomes brainwashed by her tutor’s history lesson. As she loses her innocence, her attitude towards Bruno changes and she even starts to show prejudice towards the Jewish people she meets.

"I'm (Gretel) thirteen years old, for heaven's sake! I can't afford to act like a child even if you (Bruno) can." ( page 159)

Gretel thinks that it is disgrace to disregard her country, and does her best to act like an adult. Unlike her, Bruno was not interested in patriotism or history of his country. He just wanted to play outside with his friend Shmuel.
Even his father tried to brainwash Bruno, but it did not work, because what he heard from the Germans about the Jewish and what he experienced was totally different.

Father said, "Those people(Jewish)... well, they're not people at all, Bruno." ( Page

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