Three Changes that Affected Bruno's Life in 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'

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“The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”, by John Boyne, is a book based on the drastic change of a fictitious 9-year-old boy called Bruno, the son of a high-ranked Nazi officer living in the time of the Jewish Holocaust, World War Two. The German boy experiences three main changes in this narrative that affect his life. The first major change that affected the development of Bruno’s character was when his family had to move house: From a huge dwelling in the bustling city of Germany’s capital, Berlin, to a smaller, yet still rather large house in the quiet and eerie “Out-with” (Auschwitz), in Poland. “When he closed his eyes, everything around him just felt empty and cold, as he was in the loneliest place in the world. The middle of nowhere.” These quotes refer to how much Bruno despises the new house he has to live in “for the foreseeable future”. This is well juxtaposed to his view of his old house, where “sometimes he liked to stand in front of these stalls and close his eyes and breathe in their aromas, feeling his head grow dizzy with the mixed scents of sweetness and life.” The second major change that affected the development of Bruno’s character was the change in his living environment. In Berlin, the city was always busy and especially on Saturday afternoons, Bruno was pushed “from pillar to post” when he was in the market, this being one of the things he remembered and missed about his old life. In Auschwitz, however, his feelings about the place he had to live was that “everything here is horrible…” and “I hate it all. Absolutely everything.” The third major change affecting Bruno’s character in the narrative was when Bruno had to leave most of his social life back at Berlin. This included his school and best friends, Martin, Karl and Daniel. “I miss Karl and Daniel and Martin…I don’t think the other children look at all friendly.” Instead of school,

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