Similarities Between The Book Thief And The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

The Book Thief and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas both symbolise and represent the aspects of conformity. Between both of these texts the common factor is that in each of these films there are always a certain group of people that are able to stand out from the rest of the crowd and resist to conform. In both texts the Nazi regime puts exponential pressure on the society and youth to conform with the rest of the crowd. This is done by representing propaganda to the youth in both films to try to control the centre of their education and beliefs. This helps them to pursue the hatred and torture towards the Jewish race without any obstacles standing in their way. For example, in The Book Thief Liesel watches the Jewish written books being perished …show more content…
In these texts, the propaganda themes purpose was to show how it can be used to enforce communities to conform with the rules whether they are willing to or not. In the following films this is showed through specific characters in each film having juxtaposed and symbolic scenes that hint at conformity. In The Boy in Striped Pyjamas Bruno’s sister Gretel begins to conform to the Nazi regime. She shows that she is conforming by showing acts of maturity such as throwing away her old doll and toys. This symbolises that she is growing up and is moving onto bigger and better things which in this case is showing love and compassion towards her new role models, which are the Nazi’s. Gretel also changes her taste in music to a more traditional Nazi music, this is to show her fitting in with the rest of the crowd. Accordingly, in The Book Thief, the Bully at Liesel’s school is a perfect example of how propaganda can give influence on conformity. The Bully celebrates the war in the streets as it’s announced as if it was a moment that deserved to be recognized, and then proceeds to bully Liesel and Rudy throughout the film due to them not being as loyal to the Nazi regime as he is. The Bully threatens to call the authorities on Liesel and Rudy for a suspect book that Liesel owned which most defiantly could’ve put both of their lives at jeopardy. The following show that propaganda can …show more content…
The humanity themes was used in both of these movies to show the amount of fear and ignorance people have when certain events won’t directly affect them. In The Boy in Striped Pyjama, the opening scene juxtaposes the lifestyles of the Jewish people compared to normal people by showing Bruno and his friends playing War in the streets, whilst Jewish people are getting detained near them. This shows how ignorant and unaware they are of what the Jewish people are suffering. Bruno’s mother also shows ignorance by zoning out everything about the Jew situation and treats everyday like nothing is happening. At the beginning she is planning a party and comes home from grocery shopping. Consequently, in The Book Thief. Hans Hubermann attempts to conform against the detainment of one of his fellow friends and town mates that has been found to have Jewish background or links. The man said to Hans “you know me… please…you know me”, and out of the group of people watching the detainment happen it was only Hanz that chose to man up and resist conforming to this act. But of course a brave action comes with a consequence which shortly lead to him leaking his full name to the Nazi Soldiers which forcefully bribed him to fight in the war and to put his own life at risk. These examples portray that the audience will ignore acts that may cause tragedy or injustice to protect themselves