The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas Essay

Several lessons are portrayed throughout John Boyne’s award-winning book; The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas. You can learn lessons about friendship, lessons about not taking life for granted and even lessons about Religion. These are all lessons that are relevant to students today. Because of all these lessons, this book is an emotional journey from start to finish.

The lesson of not betraying your friends flows throughout the book. This friendship involves Bruno, a German Soldier's son, and Shmuel, a Jewish prisoner, who became the most unlikely of friends. They visit each other every day, never being able to play because of the wire fence between them. But one day, Shmuel was standing in Bruno's kitchen, polishing glasses. Bruno gives Shmuel some chicken, but a lieutenant notices and asks Shmuel if he stole the food. Shmuel said "No sir. He gave it to me…” (P. 171) and Bruno just denied and said "I've never spoken to him" (P. 172) and “I've never seen him before in my life. I don't know him." (P. 172). A few days later Shmuel had bruises all over him. This is what betraying your friends can do.

Shmuel went from a nice house in Poland to a dirty concentration camp in Germany. Bruno on the

They said things like “...they're not people at all..." (P. 53) or "You have nothing whatsoever in common with them." (P. 53). Germans thought of Jews as different so they treated them differently. When Bruno asked Gretel "Are we Jews?" Gretel opened her mouth wide, as if she'd just been slapped in the face. ( p. 183). Even a thirteen year old girl talks about the Jews as if they are inferior to the Germans. In the concentration camp, Jews were starved, terrorised by soldiers and put in horrible living conditions. Then, after the war, they gassed and burned them, trying to hide what they'd done. If we discriminate others, we'll end up doing what the Germans did and think we're better than everyone