The World War 2 is a Period of Propaganda

I wrote my essay on two books written by John Boyne, called The Boy in Striped Pyjamas and The Boy at the Top of the Mountain respectively. Based in a tight timeline, both the fictional works tie to the Nazi Germany period. Although in a close timeline of before World War 2 and during World War 2, The Boy in Striped Pyjamas follows an approach towards the youth in the period by using the innocence and naivety of the youth, showing how the differences are blind to the child’s eye and ends in a fresh perspective to events from then. The beautifully written work portrays the indifference in the mindset of a child and how the surroundings shape the mind. Whereas The Boy at the Top of the Mountain shows how a young mind can be corrupted and twisted by the role models and surroundings in that period. The plot is a strenuous and realistic plot following the periods actualities, which ends in a matter of regret and discovery of self-consciousness. I intend on displaying the connections and similarities of the bases and emotions of both works but also how dramatically different they came to be. The books are both very similar, following the lead role of a youth character of similar ages and The Holocaust, the Nazi Germany period. The main idea of this essay is to show the difference in the structure and approach to writing based on the context of the book and also to show how both main characters start in very similar positions but end up in extremely different places due to extraneous factors, meaning that irrespective of the similarities in the beginning, the journey shapes the entirety but, in the end, conveying almost the same emotion and idea.

World War 2 was the bloodiest and largest conflict in history, with millions of deaths incurred and propaganda on the rise, the youth are influenced in all sorts of ways. Both the novels written by John Boyne, The Boy in Striped Pyjamas and The Boy at the Top of the Mountain, hold the same background- a child who grows up in a period before and during the World War 2, in a household relating to Adolf Hitler. Boyne successfully portrays the vulnerability and naivety of a child’s mind in a strong, violent and societal driven surrounding. This essay focuses on Boyne’s reconstruction of how the leaders and propaganda during the WW2 impacted the identity and personality development of the youth and how it is expressed through the novels. Boyne was able to bring back an event from the past, in the form of an adolescent’s novel, and portray the event in a point of view for a child.

WW2 was a period of racism, violence, propaganda, greed, and mainly milestone events of the world and the main timeline followed in both novels is the Nazi Germany period, i.e., the Holocaust.

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is based in 1943, during the WW2, where the protagonist is a nine-year-old boy, Bruno. After being visited by Adolf Hitler, Bruno’s father is promoted to commandant, and the entire family has to move to Out-With (in actuality, Auschwitz) from Berlin. Through his adventurous demeanor and fascination for exploration, Bruno meets Shmuel, a Jewish boy of similar age, who lived in a concentration camp. A series of tragic events occur, as it teaches Bruno’s parents a man’s capacity for inhumanity.

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain is set right before the WW2, in the interwar period. Pierrot, a seven-year-old boy, is the protagonist who loses his parents at a young age and moves in with his aunt who was a maid in Austria. Coincidentally, she worked as a maid in the Berghof, the home of Adolf Hitler. Hitler finds a softness towards Pierrot and turns into a father-like figure in his life. Hitler’s strong influences shapes Pierrot into a servant of the Nazi regime and faces a series of events that change his life forever, leading to self-realization.

This novel’s entire plot revolves around underlying themes of evil, influence, corruption and power, portraying Hitler’s charismatic, manipulative and unforgiving influence on the growing mind of a young boy. It talks about topics unspoken of, like rape and destructive choices. It sets the unsettling feeling of stolen innocence and betrayal. He turns from the best friend of a Jewish boy to a devoted servant of the Nazi regime. The ending of the novel, when Pieter is in deep regret and guilt, involves a moving act of redemption by Pieter as he meets his Jewish childhood best friend, Anshel, and shows the depth of character and effects of the World War 2 propaganda on the youth.

Both the novels are seemingly bound by the Nazi regime, running through very emotional and coarse storylines, but end in regret and guilt. The idea of showing the growth and development of the mind of a child is extremely idealistic as the effects of the war were never seen towards the youth, Boyne gives a very new perspective which comes of pessimistic or shallow towards the holocaust, but shows how anyone can be affected by it.

Boyne uses all the surrounding variables in a protagonist’s life to develop their character throughout the novel, and that gave texture to the storyline and helped him achieve a realistic effect of how the World War 2 affected people. Contrasting stories of Bruno and Pierrot show Boyne’s flexibility in portraying character development. Two novels with drastically different endings touch upon the same ideas, how the war left the people, and Boyne expressed these with strong sentiments like death and regret to leave a bitter sense in the readers’ mind towards humanity and its course. Yet Boyne is able to use simple, easy to understand jargon to explain such monumental events in the form of a children’s novel.