Summary

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy who likes to explore. He grows up in Berlin during the Second World War. He lives in a big house (‘with five floors in total, if you included the basement and the little room at the top of the house with the slanted windows where Bruno could see right across Berlin if he stood on his tiptoes’) with his parents and his sister Gretel (the ‘Hopeless Case’), who is twelve years old. One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, all his clothes were already packed in boxes. His father commissioned a new job by the Fury and they have to move to ‘Out-With’ (Auschwitz). Bruno doesn’t like it at Out-With because soldiers were walking in and out every day and the house wasn’t as big as the house back in Berlin. Bruno hated Lieutenant Kotler the most because he called Bruno ‘little man’ instead of ‘young man’. He was bored so he started to make a swing of ropes and an old tyre. After a couple of hours playing on the swing an accident took place, so he stopped playing on the swing and a few days later he went exploring in the wood. After an hour and a half walking through the wood he came at the fence, which he could see from his window on the first floor. At the other side of the fence he saw many people who were all wearing the same striped pyjamas. He went back over and over again without seeing anything changes, till he saw a little boy who was sitting cross-legged near the fence. They began to talk, and they found out that their birthdays were on the same day and because Bruno didn’t had any other children around Out-With to play with, he went back every day to talk to Shmuel.

Bruno began to like it at Out-With because of Shmuel, and he really began to like Shmuel. He rarely thought about his other three ‘best friends for life’ back in Berlin. But after a year his mother went to dislike it at Out-With, so she decided that they went back home again. Bruno wasn’t sure what he was feeling about that decision. He went to Shmuel and told him. Shmuel was very sad about that. They didn’t had the opportunity to play with each other once so they decided to see each other tomorrow (the last day Bruno was able to come to the fence). Because it wasn’t an option for Shmuel to get to Bruno’s side of the fence, Bruno would get to Shmuel’s side of the fence by rolling under it in a striped pyjama. Bruno and Shmuel went exploring at ‘the other side of the fence’ but after two hours Bruno wants to go home because it went dark. But... A group of people need to go to a hut to be out of the storm for a few minutes (that’s what Bruno thought) but no one came back from the hut ever since.

Detailed Analysis

The title of the book is ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, because Bruno met a boy who, according to him, was wearing a striped pyjamas. He didn’t knew it wasn’t a pyjama but a sort of uniform. The main characters are (of course) Bruno, Gretel, Shmuel, Father, Mother and Lieutenant Kotler. Other important  characters are Maria (the maid), Pavel (the waiter), Grandfather and Grandmother. The story begins in Berlin. But after the move (which is the biggest part of the story)is it in an unknown place, somewhere in Poland. As reader you only know the name of the house, which is Out-With.

The book is set in the Second World War, with camps, commandants, Jews who must wear a Star of David. Because of that the genre of the book is war, or because the story didn’t happen, cpuld the genre be ficton.

Personal Response

I really liked reading the book. It’s written very realistic. However, I don’t think the story could have really happened. I think soldiers must have seen it when a boy was rolling under the fence, and it’s also quite unreal that their birthdays falls on the same day. And when it’s the day before you move back to your old house, I think your mother wouldn’t let you play somewhere she don’t know where you are.

The book started to interest me from the moment that Bruno met Shmuel. Bruno really didn’t know what was happening at the other side of the fence, and he thought it was nicer there than in his warm, cosy house with enough food and the family together. 

Reader experience

Because the book is written very realistic, I could identify with Bruno very well. I understood him. He’s a little sad in Out-With, because there are no children around to play with or to talk with, his teacher at home does not allow him to read his books about adventure and he has a sister who plague him all the time. When he met Shmuel, his life is suddenly a lot more fun.

The film that is made of this book, is very real and good. When I saw the film for the first time I had to cry at the end, when Bruno and Shmuel died together. It is a beautiful ending, but I had preferred to see that Bruno went back to his house in Berlin, and that he would encounter Shmuel after a couple of years and that they became friends again. Of course would that be impossible.