Vincent Peguero
Week 5 essay
In book “the boy with the striped pyjamas” by John Boyne you see different themes within different situations and different characters. You get to see the struggle of curiosity and prejudice in the book. One of the main themes is curiosity within bruno, he wants to know more about the place shmuel lives and why he is there. Also you get to see the prejudice that both bruno and gretel are under with their father being a SS officer. From the very beginning you can see the curiosity from bruno. When he was helped by Pavel he already had questions about him. When he realizes that pavel is friendly he immediately starts asking Pavel questions about where he is from and why he is wearing “funny” clothing.
When bruno and shmuel first start interacting together bruno starts questioning everything about shmuel's life and why he is in the camp. Towards the end when he and his sister are going to be moved he starts questioning his fathers and mothers motive on moving him and his sister. Bruno and gretel were taught from a young age that jews are bad without even having their own experience to judge what they do and don't like. In the book you see how gretel soon starts changing from being semi open minded to being very anti semitic. Bruno’s father tries to make bruno see the way he does but even though bruno doesn’t blatantly say no he does kind of rebel against his father. In all “the boy in the striped pyjamas” holds many themes