The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a novel by John Boyne about two eight year old boys in the midst of World War Two, Shmuel a Jew and Bruno a German. The main symbols of the story are the electric fence, the striped pajamas, and the gas chamber. The symbols develop the theme of childlike innocence that Bruno possesses in the story. The first symbol is the fence enclosing the concentration camp Shmuel is in. When he first meets Shmuel, Bruno doesn’t understand why the fence is there or what it means for Shmuel. He originally thinks that the fence is to keep creatures out, until Shmuel tells him “It is to stop people getting out. We are Jews.” At this point, Bruno begins to realize that he thinks more like his grandmother and his mother than
