The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas Essay

Both Boyne and Innocenti deliberately represents horrendous events through their texts to present enduring ideas to the audience. Through The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Rose Blanche, Boyne’s myriad of characters and Innocenti’s character Rose, the audience is challenged to question their complacency with injustice. Furthermore, by the use of various notions, such as the use of metaphorical and literal barriers, as well as how we learn hatred and prejudice, the audience is challenged to critique their contemporary, social and cultural values. This allows postmodern responders to perceive the texts through an ideological lens and exceed the truths of the original setting of the Holocaust.
Through the use of Boyne’s characters Gretel and Bruno,
Additionally making the Holocaust easier to understand and comprehend, rather than confronting the audience with the terrible realities of war. Truncated sentences, such as “Shot” and “sharp,” use gaps and silences and are used throughout both texts to present these horrible situations. Correspondingly they make the audience compose their own connections to the context of the texts. Although both of these texts have very similar themes, there is major contrast with their denouements. For instance, Rose Blanche leaves the readers feeling hopeful with the final sentence declaring “spring has triumphed.” This didactic message suggests to the reader that there will always be a positive outcome, and through the metaphorical use of spring we can obtain that the time for growth and new life has arrived. This ending is considerably juxtaposed with the denouement from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as the final line tells us “nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age.” Unlike Rose Blanche, where the outcome can be seen as positive, this sarcastic sentence could make the audience feel challenged to be active and not passive citizens. Conversely, although these texts have very different endings, the greater message is the same; complacency is just as dangerous as the cruelty that lets other people