Book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

John Boyne’s novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjama’s published in 2006 tells the story by using a nine year old boy as the narrator to show the world through his eyes. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a powerful story because it is told from Bruno’s perspective. The novel is set in the years of World War 2 and the colorcast where many Jewish families live their lives in fear of the Hitler and the Germans. Boyne has used many different languages in the novel such as Tone, Literacy Devices and Characterization to show the different features and perspectives from Bruno.

The way Boyne describes Shmuel makes the reader really feel remorseful for this boy and the way he is being treated by the soldiers. Boyne Cleverly uses imagery and symbolism to describe Shmuel from Bruno’s perspective. “His skin was almost the colour of grey, but not quite like any grey Bruno has ever seen before. He had very large eyes and they were the colour of caramel sweets. ” (p. 106-107. ) Boyne has impressively used imagery to show and represent people through Bruno’s innocent and naive eyes and really encourages the reader to read on.

In the novel the way Boyne uses characterization, helps to show the different characteristics of Bruno and how he represents other characters from his perspective. “Who’s the fury? ” asked Bruno. “Your pronouncing it wrong” said father pronouncing it correctly. “The Fury” Bruno said again but failing. (p. 117). Boyne uses this, to describe to the reader that Bruno is a naive and innocent young boy. Boyne uses implied meanings as you may have realised Boyne never mention Hitler but rather says fury and makes the novel really impacts the reader. Boyne uses a lot of one in his novel to express the feelings been told through the story.

By the way Boyne has represented the way the soldiers laughed and mocked the children makes the reader leave with a distaste of the soldiers and are remorseful for the children. ”But then one of the soldiers lunged towards them and they separated and seemed to do what he wanted them to do all along, which was to stand in a single line. When they did, the soldiers all started to laugh and applaud them. ” (p. 37). It shows that the soldiers were horrible people, they pushed and laughed at all the children in the concentration camp and didn’t care one bit if it hurt them.

The feeling that you get when you read this book, it is sad and depressing, which can explain why it is a very powerful story. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas heavily impacts the reader in every way, making the novel very powerful. Boyne uses a younger innocent and naive boy, like Bruno, to tell the story by the view of a young child. Boyne uses Bruno as a narrator to highlight the prejudice that causes adults to behave badly and unkindly towards others. Using a naive narrator it confronts the reader about their own beliefs and values. The way Boyne cleverly use tone, characterization and literacy devices impacts the story greatly.