ipl-logo

Boy In The Striped Pajamas Themes

978 Words4 Pages

John Boyne’s story, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, tells the tale of an incredible friendship between two eight-year old boys during the Holocaust. One of the boys is Bruno, the son of an important German commander who is put in charge of Auschwitz Camp, and the other is Shmuel, a Jewish boy inside the camp. Throughout the story their forbidden friendship grows, and the two boys unknowingly break the incredible racial boundaries of the time. They remain best friends until Bruno goes under the fence to help Shmuel find his father when they are both killed in the gas showers of the camp. By comparing and contrasting supporting characters, irony, and the themes in the movie and the book, it is clear that the movie, The Boy in the Striped …show more content…

Bruno has no clue that the people in the “striped pajamas” are being cruelly treated and murdered, and is jealous of what he thinks is freedom. Bruno once again reveals his innocence when he asks Pavel, the Jewish man from the camp who cleans him up after a fall, “If you’re a doctor, then why are you waiting on tables?
Why aren’t you working at a hospital somewhere?” (83). It is a mystery to Bruno that a doctor would be reduced to such a state for no transparent reason, and his beliefs should be what all adults think. Though what he says is naive, it points out the barbarity of the German attitude toward the Jews. If an uneducated child could be puzzled by this, then how could learned adults allow such a thing? Through Bruno’s comment, John Boyne conveys the corruptness of the German leaders during the Holocaust, an idea that the movie does not relay to the watcher nearly as well. The book impels the reader to think deeper about the horrors of the Holocaust, and all this ties into the true theme of the

Show More
Related

  • Symbolism In Night By Elie Wiesel

    487 Words  | 2 Pages

    Elie Wiesel has a somber mood in the text ‘Night’. He does this by using imagery and symbolism, Wiesel does this so curiously, as not to plunge into a sad mood, but slowly eases the reader into the despair. The author describes a boy as “angel faced” that slowly moves towards a tragic ending. The angel is a power symbol throughout all cultures, and using that symbol to be placed onto a boy, and expressed through imagery creates a sense of dread and despair. Eliezer depicts a young boy to a “sad faced angel”, in the sense that the boy seems holy, and innocent, yet being in a labor camp, reinforces our idea that the Nazis have no respect for anything good or sacred in the world.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Night By Elie Wiesel

    747 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wiesel uses directness throughout the story to provide the reader a clear vision of the crematories used to execute the Jews. Wiesel also takes on a serious attitude as he describes the execution of a well liked young servant boy, who refused to give the SS names of people involved in the incident at Buna.  “To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter”(61). The reader further struggles to understand the realization that age mattered little to the Nazis.  Jews of all ages were targeted and killed, even a young boy “loved by all”(61).

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Father's Life

    587 Words  | 3 Pages

    With everything that has gone on in their lives, Elie felt a small relief when his father was finally taken away. After the Holocaust, all anyone cared about was food. They didn’t give a second thought to the family they’d never see again until about months or years after the Holocaust ended. Concluding, Night shows how, not only Elie, but everyone changed throughout the Holocaust, their minds corrupted by everything they’ve seen, their self image shattered to nothing, leaving them with no self respect. The Holocaust didn’t only change their physical appearance, but their mental

    Read More

  • Quotes From Night By Elie Wiesel

    926 Words  | 4 Pages

    Elie Wiesel Character Analysis Essay In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his experiences and the affects that they had on him during the Holocaust. Throughout the novel the reader gets to see Elie’s transformation from a religious, sweet little boy to the shell of a man that was left after his experience. During Elie’s traumatic experiences we can observe him going through several changes both physically and mentally.

    Read More

  • Inhumanity In Night By Elie Wiesel

    936 Words  | 4 Pages

    Elie Wiesel’s true story Night, is an intriguing story about the Holocaust. The guards and even veteran prisoners are cruel to others. The punishments, even for tiny faults, are unthinkably horrid. Man does not care how old or weak someone is; this makes the children and teens change and act inhumane towards other prisoners, even towards their own family. It clearly, and painfully, explains man’s inhumanity to man.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Juxtaposition In Night

    661 Words  | 3 Pages

    Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.

    Read More

  • Dignity In Elie Wiesel's Night

    648 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the World War II extermination camp Chelmno there were 150,000 deaths, the camp Belzec had 435,000 deaths, and the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau camp ruled with over 1,000,000 deaths. In the unbelievable novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author gives the audience a first person look on his experiences throughout his time at several prisoner of war camps as a Jewish teenager. Through the use of motifs about the night and a person’s eyes, Wiesel writes about the deeper meaning of how he kept his dignity in the face of inhumane cruelty. By analyzing the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, one can interpret the central theme of the story into a deeper meaning from the descriptions of the night and eyes, which is important because it helps younger generations to understand clearly what Holocaust survivors endured.

    Read More

  • The Boy In The Striped Pajamas Literary Analysis

    770 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, written by John Boyne, a young boy named Bruno has to move to a Jewish concentration camp, where his father works as a Nazi soldier. The fictional book focuses on Bruno befriending a young boy named Shmuel, who happens to be a prisoner of the camp. Shmuel and Bruno become best friends and decide to go on an adventure together in which they enter a concentration camp. The three topics addressed in the touching novel are foreshadow, characterization, and diction.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

    1514 Words  | 7 Pages

    Families being torn apart, being ripped from everything they’ve known growing up and being isolated within a camp where no one truly knows what’s happening to them. That’s what was going on in the life of the Jews during WWII, they were being treated as if they were no longer human, being tossed in concentration camps and given just a number to identify them, completely taking away their self importance. The atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust are being subtly portrayed in the movie “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,”directed by Mark Herman, a story told from the eyes of an eight year old boy named Bruno and his unlikely friendship with a Jewish boy named Shmuel. The movie tells the story of how a young boy begins to realize what kind of solder his father truly is and what is going on during WWII as his parents had kept him enclosed in this idea that all is well in the world. Through the use of imagery, colors, and pathos Mark Herman successfully portrays the horrors of the Holocaust through the innocent and peculiar friendship of two nine year old boys, Bruno and Shmuel.

    Read More

  • The Night Divided

    1413 Words  | 6 Pages

    Back then there were walls that divided countries, families, and friends. Because of walls, many authors write about the lifestyle of living there. Author John Boyne and Jennifer A. Nielsen both wrote books surrounding different walls. In Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, it takes place when the Jews had no right to do anything because of their religion.

    Read More

  • Life During The Holocaust Essay

    684 Words  | 3 Pages

    Life as a Jew during the Holocaust can be very harsh and hostile, especially in the early 1940’s, which was in the time of the Holocaust. “Sometimes we can only just wait and see, wait for all the things that are bad to just...fade out.” (Pg.89) It supports my thesis because it explains how much the Jewish community as

    Read More

  • 'The Boy In The Striped Pajamas'

    331 Words  | 2 Pages

    This is where I start, In the fable, “The boy in the striped pajamas” by John Boyne took place during the holocaust. It’s easier to be brave if you don’t know how dangerous a situation is. Discuss whether Bruno is a brave boy or a coward. The holocaust was an example of genocide. It was between 1933 through 1945.

    Read More

  • Night And Schindler's List: A Comparative Analysis

    1327 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Holocaust was a horrible event in history that will scar humanity forever. With the events of the Holocaust being experienced by millions there are many different perspectives of said events. One such perspective is presented in Night, a memoir written by Elie Wiesel about his experiences as a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust. Another perspective is presented in Schindler’s List, a film directed by Steven Spielberg (based on the novel Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally) about Oskar Schindler, a gentile who saves over one thousand Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Both pieces show heart wrenching stories of the abuse of a group of people in different ways, each using different mediums to convey their points.

    Read More

  • Conformity In John Boyne's The Boy In The Striped Pa

    1157 Words  | 5 Pages

    Bruno drifts between the two. In John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, he portrays this idea of obedience and conformity through the

    Read More

  • Similarities And Differences Between The Notebook Book And Movie

    864 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Notebook The well known romantic story, “The Notebook,” written by the novelist, Nicholas Sparks, portrays two people falling in love during the 1940s. The book was written in 1996 and the movie was released in 2004. Nicholas Sparks was inspired by a real life couple and that is why the movie is so realistic. The main characters Noah Calhoun and Allie Hamilton are played by popular young actors, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. Though the book and movie are based on the same love story, they have many differences, some minor and some major.

    Read More

More about Boy In The Striped Pajamas Themes

Open Document