Saturday, October 17, 2009

In Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, what does Bruno's view of reading reveal about his character?

In chapter 9 of Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Bruno gets a private teacher named Herr Liszt during his stay in the house at Auschwitz. He quickly discovers that Liszt enjoys teaching history and geography the best. When Bruno tells his teacher that he prefers reading and art over learning about history and geography, Liszt says the following:



"Those things are useless to you . . . A sound understanding of the social sciences is far more important in this day and age" (97).



Bruno asks his teacher why reading is not considered important. Herr Liszt explains that only books that "matter in the world" are useful. Apparently, fictional story books are considered useless. Bruno tells his teacher that he also enjoys performing plays with his grandmother back in Berlin, but this does not impress Liszt. In fact, he tells Bruno that his job is to get the boy's head out of his "storybooks" (98). The fact that Bruno loves reading fiction and performing plays demonstrates his interest in being creative and imaginative. Furthermore, Bruno has not yet been spoiled by any Nazi indoctrination, prejudice, or propaganda.

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