The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

John Boyne

Yana Hugentobler & Fatma Kolu

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

• What do you think is the story about? Why?

P. 180

‘It’s not called Out-With, Bruno,‘ she said angrily, as if this was the worst mistake anyone had ever made in the history of the world. ‘Why can’t you pronounce it right?‘

‘It is called Out-With,‘ he protested.

‘It’s not,‘ she insisted, pronouncing the name of the camp correctly for him.

P. 180

‘It’s not called Out-With, Bruno,‘ she said angrily, as if this was the worst mistake anyone had ever made in the history of the world. ‘Why can’t you pronounce it right?‘

‘It is called Out-With,‘ he protested.

‘It’s not,‘ she insisted, pronouncing the name of the camp correctly for him.

context? analysis?

Contextualization• How much do they already know about the Nazi regime and

Antisemitism? How would you go about teaching this sensitive issue?

• Possible questions which might be raised by students:

• What was the Holocaust? Antisemitism?

• How did the Nazis gain power in Germany?

• What were the death camps?

Key Themes• Theme One: Fable vs. History

• Theme Two: Barriers, Division, and Opposition

• Theme Three: Friendship and Family

• Theme Four: Fathers, Leaders, and Breaking the Rules (adapted from Angus Jackson)

Bruno• protagonist, 9 years old • does not realize that his

father is a Nazi or that his best friend lives in a concentration camp

GretelBruno’s sister

Father & Mother

• Bruno’s parents • father: a Nazi

commandant • mother: supports her

husband (mostly)

Grandfather & Grandmother

• grandfather: supports his son • grandmother: opposes Nazi

regime, only character who stands up to Bruno’s father • was a singer • wrote plays for her

grandchildren with different roles such as a Roman gladiator or an Arab sheik (shows her open-mindedness)

Lieutenant Kotler

• perfect example for young Aryan soldier

• fails to report his father’s opposing beliefs to the authorities and faces consequences, disappears

Shmuel• Bruno’s best friend, also 9

years old • a Jewish prisoner in

Auschwitz

Summary• Bruno and his family move away from Berlin because of his father’s

promotion

• Bruno misses his old home, feels lonely and tries to find new friends

• Bruno can see the Auschwitz death camp from his window but does not realize what it is; instead, he sees an opportunity to make new friends and eventually meets Shmuel who wears striped pyjamas and sits on the other side of the fence. They become best friends.

• When Bruno learns that he will shortly move back to Berlin with his mother and sister, he decides to cross to Shmuel’s side of the fence for a last adventure to help Shmuel find his father, who has disappeared. He dresses up as a camp prisoner and crosses the fence. This decision has devastating consequences.

Suggested Syllabus• 12-14 lessons

• after introduction in lesson, students read approx. 2 chapters as homework each week (20 chapters in total)

• different interesting group tasks including presentations

• teacher adds important observations that students do not come up with themselves in their group tasks - if they do, teacher elaborates on them by asking key questions

• comparison film & bookgoal: students work and learn as independently as possible, teacher acts only as expert when needed

Task: Book Club• during 4-5 lessons (depending on size of class), duration: 25min

• smaller groups in which one person prepares worksheet (based on chapters read as homework) for whole group and acts as expert (worksheet checked by teacher beforehand and teacher makes copies for respective groups), every other person in group has different role (they swap roles each time):

• vocabulary master / English guard

• summariser

• discussion leader / critic, etc.

• remaining 20min: teacher collects observations in plenum OR different activity for remaining time and group presentations of results/analysis at the end of project (1 lesson only for presentations)

Task: Character descriptionsHow could you break down the idea of “good” and “bad”? Could someone be

Moral/immoralKind/unkind

Friendly/meanTruthful/deceitful

Loyal/treacherousHardworking/lazy

Empathetic/self-centred Modest/conceited

For each character , decide which word most applies to them of each pair. For example, you could describe Bruno as kind, modest, friendly, deceitful and self-centred. You should end up with a list of characteristics describing your character. What other words could you add to this character description?

(adapted from Angus Jackson)

Task: Forming a Character

• Look at the four extracts (scripts). Each one introduces a character to the audience; it tells us something about their past and is likely to make us ask questions about what the future may hold for them.

• If you were an actor playing one of these parts, you would start to investigate your character by making the following lists:

• What are the indisputable facts about the character revealed in the text?

• For example: Bruno is from Berlin, he was born in 1934, he has one older sister

• What does the character say about himself?

• For example: Bruno wants to be an explorer, he has three best friends for life

• Anything anyone else says about the character?

• For example: Herr Liszt tells Bruno he has a fine mind but he needs to learn to concentrate

• Make these lists, working in groups, one character per group

• Next, look at your lists and from the information they contain, think about what you might be able to infer about the character.

• Use your imagination to make sensible leaps in terms of how your character might be feeling: what are their main concerns in this extract? What is driving them through the scene? What do they want?

(adapted from Angus Jackson)

Classroom Debate• Divide into two groups. Debate the motion: “It is

never right to break the rules.”

• One half of the class argues in favour of the motion, the other half against. Think of examples and reasons to support your argument.

• At the end of the debate, take a vote. What did you decide?

Prediction Activity• during 2 independent lessons (whole lesson)

• Class reads a chapter in short passages (in class!).

• Teacher presents 3-4 pictures of symbols, characters (e.g. a house, a tree, a car) that are connected to the continuation of the story.

• In small groups, students discuss/guess possible development of the story based on the presented symbols and present their ideas in plenum. (3 min=3 sentences).

• Class reads continuation of the story for resolution.

• The activity proceeds in a cycle form.

Important (1)• Literary elements such as dramatic irony: the reader knows more than the character

(especially regarding Bruno and Shmuel):Shmuel’s father has disappeared: ‘Papa,‘ said Shmuel. ‘We can’t find him.‘ […] ‘Well, that’s very strange,‘ said Bruno. ‘But I think there must be a simple explanation.‘ ‘And what’s that?’ asked Shmuel. ‘I imagine the men were taken to work in another town and they have to stay there for a few days until the work is done. And the post isn’t very good here anyway. I expect he’ll turn up one day soon.’ (P. 194-195) Bruno inside the camp, soldiers ”make people go on marches” (Shmuel):”[Bruno] didn’t know what everyone looked so frightened about - after all, marching wasn’t such a terrible thing - and he wanted to whisper to them that everything was all right, that Father was the Commandant, and if this was the kind of thing that he wanted the people to do then it must be all right.” (P. 210)

Important (2)• Bruno’s language: „Out-With” for „Auschwitz” and „the

Fury” for „Führer”, etc. - story only uses Bruno’s terms, even when his father speaks, he says „the Fury” since story written from Bruno’s perspective (P. 190)(see quote in our introduction)

• Students should question Bruno’s character as well - he should be capable of understanding more than he actually does.

• Scene where Lieutenant Kotler appears very threatening to Bruno and Bruno denies his friendship with Shmuel (video)

*they eat chicken in the book

Important (3)

• Only history lessons with Herr Liszt - discussion about meaning and consequences

• More philosophical but probably interesting for students: Are humans inherently good or bad? Provide evidence from the text.

Film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008, dir. Mark Herman)

• possibility for 3 lessons: film (2) and discussion (1) regarding differences between film and book

• before film: which scenes should be included?

• important during film: worksheet

• during discussion: short introduction media analysis

Sources• Boyne, John. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

Definitions: London, 2014.

• Murphy, J. and Jackson, A.: „The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Resource Pack”. Children’s Touring Partnership, 2015. <http://www.theboyinthestripedpyjamas.com/downloads/BISP-Primary-Powerpoint-Resource-Guide.pdf>. Accessed 3 May 2017.

Questions