Book Review The Boy in The Striped Pajamas

Habsari Banoewati

Book Review The Boy in The Striped Pajamas


John Boyne is the author of The Boy in The Striped Pajamas. He was born 30 April 1971 in Dublin. He is an Irish novelist who was studied in University of Anglia to fluent his writing. This is a fable book for children and published on 5 January 2006. He is the author of eight books and this book is the most well-known because has sold more than 5 millions copies worldwide, number one New York Times best seller, and a movie adaptation. The color of this novel are light blue and dark blue, it is the color of the striped pajamas so this is really matching.

The author had this idea of the story when he saw the two boys who talked each other and the limited by the fence. He knew that they are not belonging to it so after that he started to write about two boys. The theme of this book is lonely boys who really naïve because of the loneliness that makes them think this life is a game but the truth is reality. The author used third person to tell the story. It is for show the views of children about what happen in life. He used the main character views to see what happen around him. From that children’s eyes, the reader would know how naïve they are from the experiences that they going through.

The plot of this story starts from the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and at the end is resolution. The exposition of the story starts from when the narrator introduces the main character, Bruno, and other characters that close with him such as Maria, mother, Gretel, and father. It is also tell the background of the story that they are family who lived in Berlin and want to move to Out-With because of the father’s job. From this situation, it shows that too bad Bruno would lose his happiness and there’s no fun in new house.

The rising action of this story shows the conflict between Bruno and his father and because of that, Bruno decided to make exploration by him self and meet Shmuel. The first meeting of these two little boys is really cute with how they introduce their self and tell about what the experience they had have. The author makes like this for the reader to smile when they read it and how nice really nice this young boy.

This climax can makes the reader felt tense that they will have trouble in there and Bruno who is not the part of the Jew is involved too. During Bruno and Shmuel finding papa, it makes wondering that Bruno can go back to his home and be normal again before the reader know the final of the story.

The falling action of this story is the narrator reveals the death of these two boys. This is really a tragedy because at the first the narrator brings the reader to the happy friendship but at the end, the story makes the reader felt very sad about their death that this is not suppose to happen with them. The resolution of this story is making the reader first know the situation of the two boys than Bruno’s family and all the soldiers and it makes more sad because they don’t have any idea where the boy gone.

The setting of this novel is historical setting. It is set in Germany when the country ruled by the Nazi from the early 1930s until the end of the World War II, 1945. Nazi is a German fascist party, led by Adolf Hitler. They promise the people of German to become powerful again after their defeat in face World War I. The desire to form a master race that would rule the world and fight any influence from any peoples who are not part of “pure” descent, such as Jews. These people were sent to the concentration camp to be in slave and finally executed.

There are three setting in this novel which are greatly affect the characters such as Bruno’s Berlin house, Out-With house, and the camp behind the fence. First Bruno’s Berlin house which makes him and family felt comfortable because there are 5 floors, very clean house and usually Bruno’s best friends like to play in it. Second is house in Out-With house which is Bruno very hate it because he has no friend at there and more dirty that makes him got lice in the hair. The real name of Out-With is Auschwitz, it is in Poland and place when the camp took place. The camp behind the fence is very terrible place because there were so many men in stripped pajamas and boys also, they look so thin and not healthy. This place is the place how Bruno and Shmuel met and what they have done such as talk each other and have adventure.

Bruno is the main character in this novel. The author makes his character static because from the first until the end of the story he is still very naïve because first, he just know that his father is a good soldier but the truth is he is a commandant who have rule in Out-With or camp of Jew so he is not a good guy. Second, he likes do what he like such as make an adventure to find Shmuel’s papa that he should wear stripped pajamas. From that moment he doesn’t know what will happen to him or what kind of trouble that he possible gets. It is for the reader to feel pity to him because he is very innocent and because he is from rich family, who sometimes get spoiled so he doesn’t know the reality, only know about game of adventure that he likes to do. This round character because from the beginning until the end of the story the narrator tells about Bruno that makes the reader know all about him.

Shmuel is Bruno’s new best friend in Out-With. He is static character too just like Bruno who still naïve because he doesn’t know that Out-With is a camp for Jew because all the Germans hate them. All he knows his family and he forced to get into the camp and have so many hard times such as become one of those slaves and wear striped pajamas. He also doesn’t know that papa is already dead because all he knows is his father is gone and Bruno should help him to find papa. This is Flat character because the author makes it start from chapter 10, not from the beginning.

This story has moral lessons that the reader should understand because it could happen in real life. Become naïve is not a good thing that we could fall into dangerous things. We have to realize that reality is not always nice and so we should avoid those bad things. We should listen to our parent about bad things that we must avoid it. Besides naïve is not good, according this story, naïve could makes a good friendship between two characters who from different class that there’s no difference between them. The friendship that they did, we can know that there’s no difference because all people are same and we should be friend with anyone as long as they nice to us. So we should be more careful in this life and we should have so many friends from any classes, culture, and many more.