- Title: The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas
- Author: John Boyne
- Number of pages read: 55/215
- Genre: Historical Fiction
Chapter 4 starts with describing Bruno's and Gretel's relationship between each other. Gretel was three years older then Bruno, and Bruno never liked her. But all of that changed when they moved to a different house, and most importantly, different town. They started noticing a lot of things about the new area that they moved to, and Gretel's first through was that it was a country side. Later, she realized that there weren't animals and something for plants to grow at all. There were a lot of people though. Everywhere they looked, they could see people, tall, short, old, young, all moving around. One thought came to Bruno's mind, and that was that all of those people out there were wearing the same clothes as each other: a pair of grey stripped pajamas and a grey striped cap on their heads. Later on, Bruno decided to visit his Father's office because he had a couple of questions and concerns about him. He was asked if he liked his new home, and Bruno tried to be honest so his answer was 'No.'. He kept saying all the bad things about their new home, and at one point, his father couldn't listen to him anymore, so he sent Bruno to his room. But before Bruno left, he asked his father about the people outside in the stripped pajamas. Bruno was interesting in who and what were they, and his father told him that they weren't people at all. In these two chapters that I have read, I have discovered a lot about Bruno's father and Gretel's character. Bruno's father wasn't always there for him, and Bruno was always afraid of him a bit. In this particular chapter, he listened to Bruno carefully and tried to gave him some advice at the same time, but there came the point where he couldn't listen to Bruno, and he sent Bruno to his room. These developments have affected the way that I was thinking of Bruno's life. At the beginning of this book, the author described that Bruno's family had more money then they needed, but this proves that money doesn't actually mean anything. Bruno never had a person in his house that he could actually talk to and ask for advice without fearing that that person would laugh at him and think that he wasn't smart at all.
As in the previous post, I would like to mention the author's style of writing. So far, this novel has was very easy to read and understand, and the author's word choice is what has been keeping me and forcing me to read more and more of this book. I love how author describes everything so briefly, and it is obvious that he is forcing us to imagine the picture of what we are reading in our heads.
My recent reading has fulfilled my expectations, and at the same time I am very satisfied with what I have read. I finally started to slowly understand the purpose of the title of this book, because the previous week, I couldn't assume the title's connection to the actual book.
I expect in my further reading for Bruno to find some particular group of boys that he would be capable of playing with. I think that they aren't going to move to Berlin very soon, and that they are going to be ''stuck'' in their new house for a while.
''Those people... well, they're not people at all. They are nothing to do with you. You have nothing whatsoever in common with them. Just settle into your new home and be good, that's all I ask for.'' (page 53)
I chose this passage because this is the Father's actual response when Bruno asked him about the people outside. Father tried to help Bruno and he only asked for him to settle in and at least try to be happy, and that is clearly shown in this particular passage.
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