The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Themes

From the very beginning of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, there's a sense of fragmentation and isolation in Bruno's family. He comes home to find his things being packed by the maid, Maria, and hi...

In Bruno's family, lies and deception are why he doesn't know what's going on around him. When he asks his mom why they're moving, for instance, she just says it's for his dad's "important" job. Wh...

Even though the subject is hardly talked about in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, race is everywhere in this book since it was a major player in the Holocaust—though there were many others, Jewis...

In general, violence in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is like the elephant in the room—we know it's there, but it's never talked about. We think this is because the book is seen through the eyes...

For such a young boy, Bruno has an impressively strong and sound sense of morality and ethics in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. We don't think it comes from his father (a Nazi), so we can only ass...

When Bruno is forced to leave Berlin in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, one of his main complaints is that he also has to leave his three best friends. To make matters worse, when he gets to the ne...

Perhaps surprisingly, in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, freedom and confinement apply to Shmuel and Bruno. Both are in places they were forced to go to, and both can't leave. Of course the giganti...

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is set during World War II, primarily right next to Auschwitz, one of the biggest concentration camps in the Holocaust. And yet, when it comes to Bruno, our main char...