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Literary Devices
Definition of Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given situation, and that of the... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a... read full definition
Dramatic Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Out-With:
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas relies heavily on dramatic irony. In a work of fiction, dramatic irony occurs when the reader knows more about what’s truly going on in a story than its characters do. Aside from its final chapter, the entirety of this novel is written from the naive perspective of Bruno, a nine-year-old child. Bruno is old enough to be curious, but is also too young and sheltered to understand the horrors around him. This approach creates tension between the reader’s awareness of Auschwitz and the Holocaust and Bruno’s simplistic, often misguided interpretations of what the adults around him are doing.
Bruno’s inability to recognize the atrocities occurring beyond the fenced boundary of Auschwitz demonstrates the power of propaganda and societal indoctrination. No one in a position of authority in Bruno's life is telling him that what’s happening at Auschwitz is bad. Even his Grandmother doesn't explain, although she stops speaking to her son when he becomes the Commandant of the camp. Bruno is forced to come to conclusions about what is happening by himself through conversations with Pavel, Shmuel, and Maria. Although kind-hearted and curious, Bruno has also grown up in a Nazi household and been educated in a Nazi environment. Boyne’s use of dramatic irony, in addition to driving the plot of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, urges readers to reflect on how much children are affected by the ideologies of their parents and teachers. Bruno’s belief in Germany’s supposed “superiority” and his initial, casual dismissals of Shmuel’s suffering show the toxic influence of his environment.
The reader also sees this in Gretel, who tells Bruno that they and their family are better than Jews but cannot explain why that’s the case. The novel's dramatic irony pushes readers to consider how ordinary people, especially children, were conditioned to accept and overlook systemic cruelty. By using Bruno’s sympathetic perspective, Boyne raises difficult questions about complicity and ignorance for his reader.
However, the novel’s dramatic irony also reveals how even a sheltered child might be able to sense the underlying wrongness in his surroundings. Bruno’s questions about the camp, the people within it, and Shmuel’s life show that he sees the injustice in the difference of their living conditions. Even though his love and respect for his father prevent him from hating the Nazi soldiers, he’s troubled by the casual cruelty of people like Lieutenant Kohler. The novel’s climax, where Bruno enters the concentration camp and is swept into a gas chamber in a crowd of Jewish men, is its most painful moment of dramatic irony. The reader gets a horrible sense that Bruno won’t come back to the “safe” side of the fence, but is powerless to warn him about what seems inevitable.
Related Themes:
