Stripped Pajamas Archetypes

Archetypes in The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

In the novel, The Boy In Stripped Pyjamas by John Boyne, it not only involves the

audience but also communicates ideas about issues that confront and challenge the reader.

This is accomplished through themes such as misuse of power, discrimination, and man's

inhumanity towards man, along with practical narrative techniques, character and setting. The

Holocaust is a point in history that everyone at the time had different views. The novel not

only draws the tragic effects of prejudice, but it offers a sarcastic look at the evil that humans

are capable. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a comprehensive archetype of the Holocaust.

In this paper, I will look into the journey, the child, the

Bruno is the main child in

this book; he is the iconographic figure through the story he grows wiser and, therefore, more

mature. When Bruno first discovers the fence, a boy called Shmuel faces him. The use of

symbolism in this setting is accomplished by using the fence as a physical barrier. It also

symbolically highlights the lack of knowledge and innocence of these boys. 'There are dozens

of Shmuels on this side of the fence.' When Shmuel tells this to Bruno, it further emphasizes

their lack of knowledge. The fence Is the barrier that divides the two; this displays the

discrimination and man's inhumanity. The incidents that took place were not known to many

people and were ignored by some. The child-like language that is employed during the whole

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novel is used to show the naiveté of the situation. 'out with' and 'Fury' are used to illustrate

the innocence and lack of knowledge of the people within the circumstances. It is used as a

microcosm having Bruno as the personalities in the world who did not know much about the

developments that were taking place and Bruno's Father as the misuse of power towards the

The