John Boyne's The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

Words: 740
Pages: 3

John Boyne was heavily influenced by books from his youth such as The Magician’s Nephew and The Silver Sword; the latter was a book set during WW2. After reading The Silver Sword he started to wonder what kids his age must’ve gone through during the war. As he grew older his love of the book grew as well as his love for history. So consequently this book heavily influenced his writing of The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. He tried to write this book with as much integrity and compassion as he could while still maintaining the darker theme of the book. Bruno and Gretel seem to have your typical younger brother and older sister relationship. They bicker throughout the novel, but still seem to care for each other. Gretel has a more rounded personality; she also changes through the story. At first, she likes dolls, but then grows to like politics. She also has a wider range of emotions making her more of a round character. Bruno on the other hand doesn't really change as the story progresses, at the end of the story, he …show more content…
Boyne doesn’t exactly use puns per se, but instead he uses similar words to convey Bruno’s naivety. In the book, Bruno just simply doesn’t think much of what everyone is actually saying. It is rather interesting to see something like this being used as it is not all that common, so Boyne deserves respect for using that type of literary device.
The usage of this form of pun is interesting because it truly shows how clueless Bruno is about what is going on right outside of his house. Boyne uses words such as Fury and Out-With to mask Furher and Auschwitz. Even through that entire year of talking with Shmuel nothing came up about what Shmuel was going through. This dark literary device advances the horror of not knowing what is going on right outside your window. By using a pun like this he creates a very nervous