The Tiger's Choice: Finishing The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
Bruno, in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is one of the more problematic fictional characters whom I’ve found within the pages of a book. While Corinne said in her comments that she thinks his character is realistic, since he is a nine-year-old boy who has led a sheltered life, has an overbearing older sister, and lives in a time when there was no television or internet, I found his inability to understand his own language, as shown by his persistent usage of The Fury for the Fuhrer and Outwith for Auschwitz, to be unconvincing, contrived, and essentially unnecessary. However, it’s certainly true that without television and other mass media we could all be as uninformed and as naive as Bruno and that sometimes a character is more an instrument to advance a story’s plot than a breathing, convincing entity.
And Bruno certainly does advance the plot of this story. It’s a page-turner. As Corinne says, ” Once I started it, there was no way I could put it down until I had finished it.” I gulped it down as well and was relieved to know that this is the way the author intends for the book to be read.
Bruno’s simplified way of looking at the world around him makes this a good introduction to the Holocaust for children who know little about this time in history, and could work well in a classroom setting where there would be immediate answers to the questions that arise.
As an adult, I was annoyed by “red herring” portions of the book that were brought up and then never fully explored. Lieutenant Kotler is grilled by Bruno’s father over dinner one evening about the reason for Kotler’s father leaving Germany in 1938. Is Kotler’s father a Jew? A dissident? Who knows? It is never explained and left me wondering why the scene took place. It doesn’t seem to play a part in Kotler’s subsequent disappearance, which Corinne attributes to Kotler’s closeness to Bruno’s mother.
The shocking ending of this book comes so closely after Bruno’s betrayal of Shmuel and Shmuel’s subsequent punishment for stealing food that it could be wondered if Shmuel had intended for Bruno to stay behind the fence forever. Although Bruno is sheltered and naive, Shmuel understands the differences between the two boys, especially after living in the camp for a year. Corinne, on the other hand, says “Yes – I think Shmuel intended for Bruno to return home. I don’t think either boy had any idea what would happen or the risks they were taking when Bruno crawled under the fence.”
This is a book that bears discussion and I hope that it will be chosen for book groups, classrooms, and family read-alouds for years to come.
