Book Essay on the Boy in the Striped Pajamas

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was written for a school project.

“The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,” written by John Boyne, follows Bruno, a nine-year-old boy, in a situation he can’t comprehend. The time includes the cruel years of the Holocaust, and the setting is the core of the war: Nazi Germany. Bruno was born into what could be called “luxury” by his standards, as he doesn’t realize what type of position his father is in. His father is the commander of a concentration camp on the border of Poland, which is officially called Auschwitz, or, as Bruno calls it, “Out-With.” After moving from a mansion in Berlin to a run-down house outside of the camp, Bruno obviously decides to find something to do, as there seems to be nobody around for him to talk to. But when walking near the fence surrounding the camp, Bruno meets a boy named Shmuel. As both of them don’t seem to have any other choice, they begin a friendship. After about a year, Bruno decides to help Shmuel find his now-missing father. After receiving a pair of the “striped pajamas” that all of the Jews inside the camp wear, Bruno crawls under the fence to assist Shmuel in finding his supposedly missing father. However, when they are looking, the two boys are gathered into a group and are forced to march inside a building Bruno doesn’t recognize: a gas chamber. As the doors close, Bruno and Shmuel hold hands, and continue to do so as both of them are killed, leaving only the reader to know the true story of the boys.

If the closing thought of the prior sentence wasn’t enough, I think that the main theme of the book was about representing the people whose stories were never told. In fact, the author himself says this in a note regarding the book: “But whatever reaction you have to this story, I hope that the voices of Bruno and Shmuel continue to resonate with you as they have with me. Their lost voices must continue to be heard; their untold stories must continue to be recounted. For they represent the ones who didn’t live to tell their stories themselves.” There are so many lost and untold stories of these terrible times out there, but just as Bruno’s and Shmuel’s were, their tales were lost in the wreckage as well.

This leads into a smaller, but still prevalent idea of the book: how there are many other stories like these. The author left out the real name of the camp, and instead said it with Bruno’s point of view, in which the name was “Out-With.” His intention for this was simple: he wanted to broaden the term. Boyne was wanted to express how stories as terrible as these (and even worse) existed all around the world at the time. By not speaking the name of the camp, the reader can connect this tragic story to most concentration camps at the time.

The characters in the story, as I believe it to be, are representative of a larger whole. When looking deeper into all of them individually, most of them can be summed up in one sentence each, as all of the characters remain completely static throughout the novel. For example, Bruno remains just as oblivious to the pain and suffering around him at the start as he is at the end. The characters in this novel shouldn’t be taken all at face value.

One can not talk about a book following the Holocaust without discussing one of the key components: the setting. The house that Bruno lives it lies directly next to Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. The family was placed there by Adolf Hitler, or, as Bruno calls him, “The Fury,” after Bruno’s father was promoted to lead the camp. If the family had not moved there, Bruno would still be alive, as he never would’ve encountered Shmuel. All of the tragedy that unfolds in the end is caused by a misunderstanding of the setting.

“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is an extremely powerful novel. As such, I actually think I learned quite a bit about the personal part of the subject. What I learned is that there are many more stories like these out there, but they can’t be heard. Life doesn’t wait up for you to tell your life story. Life is an unforgiving, cruel, and beautiful mess that doesn’t bother to take its time.

Bruno’s and Shmuel’s stories are a prime example of this. Their terrible experience and innocence, if real, could have been lost in the blaze like many others. Bruno was mostly oblivious, as he thought the camp Shmuel lived in had happy families, well-kept houses, and that they all wore “striped pajamas.” Shmuel, on the other hand, had more of a grasp on what was going on, but still didn’t understand why everything had happened the way it did. Not understanding why all of these terrible things are happening to you might just be worse than being able to.

In general, victims of the Holocaust will always be recognized, but many of their stories can never be shared. They will never be able to tell people about their life. In fact, some of them can’t even be named. They’ll never be individually respected, which is a truly heartbreaking and unsolvable case.

Overall, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is a poignant and important book. It weaves a delicate idea of just how many tragic stories like these were lost and can never be restored; it is a truly good novel for being introduced into the extremely troubling subject. Now, for the type of person that would read such a book, be it a child or an adult, the author actually elaborated on the target age group. When asked the question “Do you think this is a children’s book?” Boyne responded with this: “Is it a children’s book? No. Is it an adult’s book? No. It’s a book. It’s a story. And the more I grow as a writer, and the more I have conversations about writing with people like yourself [the interviewer], the more I learn about writing and realize that these are distinctions- Who are these distinctions for? You know who these distinctions are for? They’re for bookshops.” With this in mind, it is safe to say that “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is a necessary and timelessly relevant novel.