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

    The Boy in the Striped Pajamas tells a fictional story. However, it is telling a fictional story about a true historical event. Unfortunately, this film includes inaccurate and implausible information. There seems to be a cloud of oblivion over everyone's head. It seems doubtful that Bruno does not know there is a prison camp next to him, especially after his friendship with Shmuel develops. The idea of a friendship being created on opposite sides of the fence is also implausible. In reality, there would be extremely high security guarding the entire camp, making it impossible for Bruno to sneak in as…

    • 1691 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a book that really made an impact on me. The book is very well written and made you feel a real emotional connection with the characters in the book. The book was so emotionally impacting that it actually made me cry and want to throw the book across the room. What happens in this book is that two little boys, one, the son of a german Nazi, and the other a Jewish little boy, meet and they become the best of friends, but there is a twist. Bruno and Shmuel don’t seem to really understand what was going on at the time.…

    • 612 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 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

    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

    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
  • Good Essays

    Few people understand that discrimination and racism still take place today. John Boyne's novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, presents the thoughts of a German boy, Bruno, who has a Jewish friend, Shmuel, during the Holocaust. Both nine-year-old boys maintained an unyielding relationship with each other during the Holocaust, a horrendous era of discrimination towards the Jews from Germans, despite their differences. Many readers would believe that John Boyne wrote this novel inappropriately, because a majority of characters were not convincing, and the subject of the Holocaust was too serious for a children's book.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, shows what life was like in Germany when the Nazis were taking over. The film tells us about two young boys with two different lives. The Boy in the Striiped Pyjamas is useful about some topics based in that time however it can also be unreliable in others. The Holocaust was mainly a target for Jewish people, black people, homesexuals, gypsies and the physically disabled, the mentally disabled and those involved in resistance movements against Hitler.. The Jewish people were the main traget and this chatastrophe started when Hitler came into power. The holocaust was a bruital place for those people, they had no other choice but to do slave labour, such as people had to work in tunnels and starve to death.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971 and is the author of four previous novels, The Thief of Time, The Congress of Rough Riders, Crippen and Next of Kin. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. He lives with his partner in Dublin.…

    • 35455 Words
    • 142 Pages
    Powerful 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
  • Good Essays

    The movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about an eight year old boy named Bruno who moved to a residence near Auschwitz Concentration Camp from Berlin after his father is promoted to the Commandant of the camp during World War 2. Sometime after arriving to his new “home” Bruno becomes bored without his friends and disobeys his mother’s rule against leaving the front yard. He explores hoping to find others his age. Awhile later, Bruno finds another child named Shmuel on the other side of a fence that surrounds the concentration camp, despite the vast sociological pressures that should have prevented their friendship, the naivety of their youth allows one to form. Their friendship displays how the innocence of children allows them to look…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a 2006 novel from the point of view of a naive young boy, written by Irish novelist John Boyne. Unlike the months of planning Boyne devoted to his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end. [1] To date, the novel has sold more than 5 million copies around the world, and was published as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in the United States. In both 2007 and 2008 it was the best selling book of the year in Spain. It has also reached number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as in the UK, Ireland, Australia and many other countries.…

    • 2337 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful 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

    Beginning in 1940s Germany, nine-year old Bruno discovers that he and his family are moving from Berlin to an extremely isolated, downgraded, and fenced-in home in Auschwitz. While unpacking, he notices something absurd outside his window, thousands of adults and children on the other side of the fence wearing the same “striped pajamas”. Following months of curiosity, Bruno explores his new territory, which involves walking along the boundaries between his home and the concentration camp, and comes across a boy sitting on the ground in his lined clothing and an armband featuring the Star of David. In need of company, he begins conferring with Shmuel, the boy on the other side of the fence, and eventually, plan to meet again the next day. After…

    • 344 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When authors create texts they are constructed with an intention in mind, the way in which a reader interprets a text can support or resist the way in which the author wanted. John Boyne's, "The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas", is an example of a text in which numerous interpretations from both Boyne's intention and the readers personal context can be gathered. "The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas" is a story set in World War II from the perspective of an nine year old boy named Bruno, who happens to be the son of Auschwitz's commandant. He strikes an unlikely and forbidden relationship with a young Jewish boy named Shmuel who is imprisoned on the other side of the fence, leading to foreshadowed and unsettling events. John Boyne seeks to present a…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays