Preview

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas- Critical Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
567 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas- Critical Analysis
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by Alethea Chong (Ally)
~ Critical Analysis ~ The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a novel that was written by John Boyne. It was first published in 2006. John Boyne was born in Ireland 1971 and is the author of six novels. His novels were published in over 30 languages. Because people were inspired by The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, it has now been made into a featured film. The story The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas revolves around the friendship between a 9 year old German boy and a Jewish boy who is in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Bruno the German boy is at Auschwitz because his father is the Commandant of the camp. This story shows Bruno’s innocence and the friendship between him and Shmuel. It also reveals the brutality of the Germans to the Jews in World War II. There are many themes that runs through the story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I have chosen friendship brutality and fear as the themes I will discuss. Friendship is the most important among the three major themes. An example of the friendship between Bruno and Shmuel was shown by Bruno when he shared his food with Shmuel when he was hungry. Another example was when they played together and confided in each other. Thus a bond of friendship was developed. My final example of friendship was when Bruno helped Shmuel look for his Papa. Bruno had helped a friend in need. However, they did not succeed in finding Shmuel’s father. Both boys tragically ended their short lives in the gas chambers. Brutality is also one of the important themes in the novel. This is clearly defined when Lieutenant Kotler has beaten Pavel up just because he had spilled some wine on the Lieutenant. Also, an example of brutality would be when Lieutenant Kotler hits Shmuel as he was unfairly accused of stealing food.. This is very brutal as no one should ever abuse a child even if they are Jewish. The last exampled of brutality is the way the Germans treat

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Told almost entirely from a young, naive German boy’s point of view, Mark Herman’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a hard-hitting Holocaust tale that will render audiences speechless. After arriving home, Bruno (Asa Butterfield) learns that his family will have to move because his father (David Thewlis) achieved a promotion in the Nazi army. Bruno noticed what he believed to be farmers living just past a stretch of woods near their new home. One day, not long after being told not to go near the “farmers,” Bruno leaves his home and heads towards the camp. There he meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a young Jewish boy. While trying to understand what is happening in the world around them, the boys become friends. While…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story starts off in Nazi Germany in the early 1940s. Eight-year-old Bruno and his family move to the countryside because his father was in charge of a concentration camp in Germany called Auschwitz. One day when Bruno was exploring an area that his parents said was out of bounds he came a cross a fence where a boy his age was on the other side. Bruno quickly becomes friends with this boy, Shmuel, and day after day Bruno visits him at the “farm”. Shmuel decided to tell Bruno that his father is missing and Bruno vows to help him find him. The next day the boys meet at the fence and Bruno changes into the striped pajamas that Shmuel provided and then climbs under the fence into the “farm”. As the boys search the rooms for Shmuel’s father they…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Boyne uses narrative voice and a variety of other literary devices to convey the main ideas of prejudice and discrimination, power of friendship and innocence in his novel “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (BITSP)”. Boyne’s novel portrays the story of a young German boy in Nazi Germany who befriends a Jewish child residing in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The author explores prejudice and discrimination, power of friendship and ideas of innocence in his novel. Boyne uses third person limited narrative, dramatic irony, juxtaposition, setting and symbolism to convey these ideas in his novel. Boyne’s novel uses these techniques to create these ideas, giving us an insight into the experiences of the Jewish people during Nazi Germany.…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Boyne represents the different perspectives of society in World War II through the representations of characters in the fictional novel The Boy in Striped Pyjamas. Bruno’s childlike perspective is represented through his malapropism of “the Fury” and “Out-With” and his reaction to unexpected events, “mouth making the shape of an O”. The irony of Bruno’s narrow view, “it’s so unfair...” confronts the audience with the ignorance of some German citizens to the horrific events of the Holocaust. The characters of “Mother” and “Grandmother” are utilised by Boyne to represent the differing perspectives of the society during the Holocaust. Grandmother exercises constructive disobedience in dissenting with the Nazi regime and perceiving Fathers role as “a puppet on a string”. This is juxtaposed to Bruno's Mother through the euphemism of "[Bruno] had never known anyone to need quite so many medicinal Sherries" showing her complacency to do nothing about the knowledge of the concentration camp. Boyne positions an older audience to see the dangers of naivety and the cost of inaction.…

    • 510 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Miss

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In “The boy in striped pyjamas” Boyne juxtaposes the character Pavel and lieutenant kotler in chapter 7. The writer does this to demonstrate the vast differences between the way a soldier and a prisoner were treated in 1942. The reader knows from the context of the novel that Jewish prisoners were treated practically brutally by German officers.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through Boyne’s novel, The boy in the striped pyjamas it reveals how belonging can enrich our identity and relationships. This would subsequently portray how acceptance and understanding may be obtained through the enrichment of ones identity.…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Similar to the crucible, the boy the striped pyjamas written by John Boyne also explores many aspects of belonging. It deals with the concept of safety, security and social connection within society, as well as the desire for power, being one of the strongest drives that humans possess.the boy in the striped pyjamas focuses on complex emotional issues of evil and the holocaust in WW2. Even though the novel is written through a child’s point of view it was intended for a more educated and aware audience.…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Author John Boyne published his infamous novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. John Boyne was born in Dublin, Ireland. Boyne attended Trinity College in Dublin where he first studied English Literature and then proceeded to the University of East Anglia in Norwich where he then studied creative writing. He began his published writing career in the year two-thousand with his first published book The Thief of Time. Though The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas separates itself from Boyne’s traditional style of writing by having being written for a younger audience, it was the book that took John Boyne’s career to the successful point it is now at. Using his father’s date of birth as the same for both Shmuel and Bruno, Boyne could further relate the two boys to a familiar story. Demonstrating the truly catastrophic events of the Holocaust in a fictional novel, Boyne captures the torment that two young boys face in a time where their innocence is taken away by one of the most evil acts of humanity.…

    • 1524 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boy In The Striped Pajamas is a book by John Boyne that was published in 2006. This book takes place during the holocaust. A little boy named Bruno, his mom, dad and sister Gretel move from their home to a new house where the father is in charge of a concentration camp. Bruno goes exploring at the new house and makes his way to the concentration camp finding a young boy, the same age as himself, named Shmuel. In 2008 a movie adapted from the book directed and written by Mark Herman, was made. The movie was very similar to the book and followed the storyline well. However, the setting had a few small elements that were changed from the book as well as in the plot and ending.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Spectacle Diction

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Boy in the Striped PJ’s, plot is the main importance in the movie with the Nazi story. Idea is second, the emotions of sadness throughout the movie. Characters of the two boys make…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight year old son of the commandant at a concentration camp. This movie was again probably the top 5 of the best movies we have seen all year. It did a brilliant job of representing how gruesome it was for even German families, especially for the kids we are never really told what is going on but instead taught to hate and despise anybody that isn’t Aryan. Since this film is still recent I was expecting it to be good and it did not disappoint, with a stellar cast of known actors like David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, and Asa Butterfield. It got my attention right off the start and kept it going, to a very thriller story.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Striped Pajamas Ignorance

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Bruno, newly moved into a town outside of Auschwitz’s concentration camps, comes across Shmuel by accident. A fence separates them…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For example in the text it says that, "for the older reader, of course, Bruno’s innocence comes to stand for the willful refusal of all adult Germans to see what was going on under their noses in the first half of the 1940s.” For younger readers, she argues, the story’s slow release of details “becomes an education in real time of the horrors of ‘Out-With,’ known to the grown-ups as Auschwitz" This shows us that the story could be taken as adults ignoring the events taking place around them or as a slow release of events in real time in Auschwitz. What Hughes says helps support the claim made in the Point essay by showing how historic fiction could benefit people in real life. All in all, Kathryn Hughes' view of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is that it can mean different things for adults and for…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As a result of this common time period, many characters in these types of novels are similar, i.e. German soldiers, Hitler and Jewish people. ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ follows this convention because it is based in the 1940’s during the Holocaust period and involves typical characters of this time like Bruno’s father who is a Nazi, and Jewish people who live at the camp, next door to Bruno’s home. You can tell that this novel is based in this time-period throughout this book, for example when Shmuel, a young Jewish boy, says “my birthday is April the fifteenth, nineteen…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays