The Boy In The Striped Pajamas Analysis

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Recommended: Effects of the holocaust

John Boyne’s, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a story that is written about the Nazi search and mass murder of Europe 's Jewish population. Bruno is the son of a German Nazi commander that runs the concentration camps in Poland, 1942 during World War II. Bruno is forced to move away from his elegant Berlin home and sent to a prison-like compound, with his family in the commandant 's compound, located on the outside the concentration camp away from the work stations. He is tortured by boredom and a result he leaves the compound and stumbles upon the camp. Bruno meets a small boy sitting on the other side of the fence and strikes up a friendly conversation with him. Shmuel is the same age as Bruno and his lack of education does not help him …show more content…

Innocence is thought to be lack of knowledge or understanding or not having opportunities to know and experience. Boyne characterizes the innocence of Bruno in order to challenge and juxtapose the growth in personality under the pressure of arriving new environment ‘Out-With’ which forces the character to grow up. “Eyes open wide…mouth made the shape of an O…arms stretched out at his side…” (219), shows the innocence of Bruno through the use of descriptive language describing the action and refers to the childishness in the readers’ experiences, presenting his youth. Child ignorance is here to be appreciated, in which childishness always bringing out true feelings that can pass as theme effectively. “Tried hard to keep his mouth shut…some people might not like it” (175) is an example of escaping as a result of fear. This can be linked to the previous experiences of the dinner scene that encourages innocence to fade into ignorance by using self-control as an excuse. Boyne expresses ideas, questions, personalities and moralities through the characterization, therefore it would not be to direct rather in a softer way to convey the message and it is easier to accept the ideas. Author here contrasts the growth of the personality of Bruno to illustrate the idea that everyone is corruptible by using a child as an example due to its innocent identity. The author explains the corruption as the phenomenon under the pressure of

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