lauren sands- setting

Setting:

Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, by John Boyne:

Bruno resided in the time of the Holocaust. His house was placed a few miles away from the camp, which was within Bruno’s reach. It happened to be a special place for Bruno because without it, he wouldn’t have a friend. Shmuel, his friend, was the same age as he and would often times entertain Bruno. Him and Shmuel didn’t have to physically play. Instead, they would sit and talk. Resulting from this, Bruno built a strong relationship with Shmuel. The camp was a horrid place, where they would torture the lives of the Jewish people, by starving them and over working them. When Bruno first moved into his new home, his room had a small window in it, through which he could catch a glimpse of a “farm”. It wasn’t a farm, but a concentration camp. Innocent Bruno had just assumed it was a farm, until later he discovered that it wasn’t a farm at all. From Bruno’s window you could see a “huge wire fence that ran along the length of the house and turned in at the top, extending further along in either direction, further than (anyone) could possibly see. The fence was very high, higher even than the house they were standing in, and there were huge wooden posts, like telegraph poles, dotted along it, holding it up. At the top of the fence enormous bales of barbed wire were tangled in spirals (32)”. This fence separated the Bruno’s life with Shmuel’s. It hurt Shmuel to live there because his relatives were being killed. He was uninformed of what was happening. The scenery is vital to the story because without it, Bruno would not die in the end and Shmuel would never have a friend. I would hate to be in this setting because I would be traumatized, hungry, tired, and mainly dehumanized, like Shmuel was. Although, if the story were to be in another time, Bruno might have found out all about the camps and Shmuel might have perished.