late for him to leave. Bruno and Shmuel get caught up in a march of people and end up in a gas chamber.

Because Boyne writes in the third person point of view from Bruno’s perspective, the reader does not immediately get a complete picture of what happens here. Bruno looks around and does not understand what this room is for and what the loud sounds mean. Confused and afraid, he grasps Shmuel’s hand “and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go.”

It is not until the next chapter that the reader really learns what happened. “Nothing more was ever heard of Bruno after that,” the narrator explains. Bruno’s clothes are found near the fence and people begin to piece together what had happened. Bruno and Shmuel have been killed in the gas chamber.

In my mind, the most important event in the novel is the moment when both boys enter the gas chamber.  It is significance for a variety of moments.  The friendship between Bruno and Shmuel is at its apex at this moment.  It shows how important both are to one another.  At the same time, it is important as it shows how friendship can transcend the temporal conditions that might limit it.  Bruno and Shmuel are loyal to one another, even though their social order tells them opposite.  Bruno does not waver in his commitment to his friend, even though the society tells him otherwise.  It is also significant because his innocence and pure way of looking at the world is both murdered and martyred simultaneously.  The idea that Bruno dies with his friend is a moment of intense horror and intense beauty.  It is difficult to find one instant that captures both extremes, but I believe it is an important moment that speaks to the power of the book.  There are many important instants in the book that speak to what it means to be human, but I think that the moment when both boys enter the gas chamber is one of the most powerful.

As is usually the case in any work of fiction, the rising action of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas spans the majority of the novel. It begins after the exposition and initial conflict, when Bruno's family move away from Berlin for his father to take a promotion in the German army. Their new house is in a remote area, but there are thousands of people living on the other side of a fence near the house. One of these people is an old man called Pavel who works for Bruno's parents as a servant. One day, when he dresses a cut incurred by Bruno in falling off a swing, Pavel reveals that he used to be a doctor. It makes no sense to Bruno that a former doctor would now have to work as a domestic servant.

The people on the other side of the fence are in a camp called Auschwitz, which Bruno pronounces "Out-With." They all wear a uniform of striped pajamas. One day, Bruno meets a boy called Shmuel, who lives in the camp, and the two become friends. Bruno does not understand the nature of the camp or why Shmuel is there, but he sees that his new friend is dangerously thin and brings him food. As Bruno's friendship with Shmuel develops, Bruno's mother tries to persuade his father to allow the family to return to Berlin. Eventually he agrees. When Bruno goes to say goodbye to Schmuel, he agrees to dress up in striped pajamas and crawl under the fence to explore the camp before he leaves and help Shmuel search for his missing father. This is the end of the rising action and the beginning of the climax.

In the plot of a story, the falling action comes right after the climax, the moment of greatest intensity in the story. In The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, the climax takes place when Bruno, who's changed into the uniform of a young Jewish prisoner, is herded with his friend Shmuel into the gas chamber, where they are both killed.

The falling action, then, consists of the aftermath of Bruno's tragic and unexpected death. When his parents realize he's gone missing they're understandably out of their minds with worry. Both Bruno's mother and his father Ralf search frantically for him but to no avail. Neither of Bruno's parents has the faintest idea of what could've happened to him. The very thought that he might've been killed in the gas chamber simply doesn't occur to them. The whole idea is grotesque in the extreme.

It's only when Bruno's mother and his sister Gretel leave "Out-With" and head back to Berlin that Ralf is finally able to figure out what happened to his son. Try as he might, Ralf cannot ignore all of the available evidence, which points unmistakably to one conclusion and one conclusion only: that Bruno died in the gas chamber, the very same gas chamber that he, Ralf, was responsible for operating.

The rise of Nazism and the Holocaust are two events that relate to all of the characters in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

The rise of the Nazi philosophy relates to Bruno's family. Bruno's grandparents, especially his grandmother, have to confront how their son, Bruno's father, embraces his future as a Nazi.  Bruno, Gretel, and their mother must move to Auschwitz because of father's "promotion" in the Nazi ranks.  Similarly, Lieutenant Kotler covets the career advancement his participation in Nazism affords him.  Herr Liszt's nationalist teachings reflect Nazi ideology. The emergence of Nazism also impacted those considered "outsiders."  Pavel and Shmuel are victims to it.  They are in Auschwitz, along with millions more, because the rise of Nazism deemed them as "enemies."  

The Holocaust is another event that relates to all of the characters.  On some level, it forces people to take action. On one side, people like Bruno's father and Lieutenant Kotler are perpetrators of the Holocaust.  They are part of the political and social agenda that targets those who are seen as "different." Kotler has no problem berating those he sees as "lesser" than him, something intrinsic to the Holocaust.  Bruno's father is in the position of power at Auschwitz, part of the Nazi death machinery that defined the Holocaust. At the other end of the spectrum, people like Bruno's grandmother stood opposed to the Holocaust, arguing that it is essential to speak out against a political and social program that targets other people.  Bruno's mother and sister take a stand against the Holocaust when they leave Auschwitz after Bruno's disappearance. Finally, Bruno repudiates the philosophy behind the Holocaust when he dons "striped pajamas" to help Shmuel find his father.  As he and Shmuel are herded into the gas chamber, the physical embodiment of the Holocaust, Bruno affirms friendship amidst hate and sadness.  The Holocaust and the rise of Nazism are two events that relate to all of the book's characters.

During the months that Bruno spends with his family in the Auschwitz commandant’s residence, his life changes drastically. As the protagonist of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Bruno undergoes a series of transitions and changes. At the start, he is innocent and ignorant, but eventually he makes a new friend and learns something about his new environment. Later in the novel, he approaches and confronts death.

In chapters 3 and 4, Bruno converses with his sister, Gretel, about the reasons the family has moved to such a rural area and the possible functions of the complex that their father is now managing. These chapters provide insight into the siblings’ relationship as well as their ignorance of the social changes that German society is undergoing.

In chapter 13, after Bruno and Shmuel have become friends, the boys converse about their lives at the camp. While Bruno sees the possibility of playing with the other children he has not yet met, Shmuel implies that they do not play. This moment shows Bruno’s naive ignorance of the situation.

Chapter 19 ends with the horrific sight of the children confined within the long chamber, at which point Bruno affirms his close friendship with Shmuel. The author deliberately ends the scene at this point.

There are numerous scenes that include important dialogue throughout the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. One of the most significant conversations takes place in Chapter 4, between Bruno and his sister, Gretel. In Chapter 3, Gretel explains to Bruno that their new house is called Out-With. In Chapter 4, Gretel follows Bruno into his room and looks out of his window for the first time. Gretel looks at the people through the window and asks Bruno, who they are and what sort of place is this. Bruno tells her that it's not as nice as home, and when Gretel asks where all the girls are, he says that they must be in a different part. Boyne then gives a description of the massive fence surrounding the small homes and buildings. Gretel tells Bruno that she doesn't understand what kind of place they are in, and Bruno mentions how nasty it looks. Gretel says to Bruno that she thinks the huts are modern types of houses, then concludes that they are in the countryside. Gretel elaborates as to why they are in the countryside, but recalls that she learned in geography class that there were farmers and animals in the country. Bruno disagrees with her and brings up the fact that there are no animals in sight and mentions the dismal condition of the ground. Gretel admits that they are probably not in the countryside, and asks Bruno, who all those people are and what are they doing. Boyne then gives a description of the people wheeling wheelbarrows and working like they are in a chain gang. When Bruno tells Gretel to "Look over there," he points to a group of children who are getting yelled at by soldiers (Boyne 37). Gretel says that it must be some sort of rehearsal and tells Bruno that she wouldn't want to play with the dirty children she sees. Bruno agrees that it does, in fact, look dirty, and says that maybe the children don't bathe. Gretel sarcastically asks, "What kind of people don't have baths?" (Boyne 38). Bruno responds by saying, people who don't have any hot water. After Gretel leaves Bruno's room, Bruno notices that all the people are wearing the same pair of striped pajamas.

I feel that the dialogue between Gretel and Bruno throughout Chapter 4 is the most important in the novel because their conversation reveals that they are living next to a concentration camp. Boyne uses their dialogue to describe the physical features of their environment, as well as the activities the prisoners are engaged in. The fence, housing, landscape, and the attire of the prisoners is mentioned throughout this chapter. The audience can surmise that the name Out-With is a mispronunciation of Auschwitz from the previous chapter, following Bruno and Gretel's dialogue in Chapter 4.

An "incident" is something that has happened in the book -- one of the events of the book. Take some time to look at the incidents that affected Bruno.

1. Bruno was seeking a tyre to make a swing. Lt. Kotler found Pavel, an old man dressing in the striped pajamas. The lieutenent talked to Pavel in such a way that Bruno was ashamed. Then,later, when Bruno fell fom his tyre swing,Pavel came to his aid and that fact had to be hidden by his mother. (Chapter 7)

2. Bruno first meets Shmuel. (chapter 10)

3. The night the Fuhrer came for dinner. (Chapter 11)

4. The Christmas that his grandmother walked out of the house after an argument with his father and never spoke with his father again. (Chapter 8)

5. Pavel being beatenby Lt. Kotler at dinner. (Chapter 13)

6. Bruno denies that he knows Shmuel and suffers extreme embarrassment. (Chapter 15)

7. The final adventure that Bruno and Shmuel plan and the outcome of that adventure. (Chapter 18-19)

Each of these is a major incident leading to the final days of Bruno. There a many minor incidents also. I hope this helps.

The young and innocent son of a high-ranking Nazi Commandant, Bruno finds his idyllic life changed one day when he returns home and sees the maid and butler packing their things. When he persists in asking his mother why they must move, she finally answers curtly, "We don't have a choice in this."

Here are three external events that occur in the narrative after Bruno arrives at his new home:

1. Dissatisfied with the family's new location, Bruno finds himself isolated, living now in "an empty, desolate place" rather than a bustling city where he has many friends. When he complains to his mother, she tells him, "We don’t have the luxury of thinking.... Some people make all the decisions for us”; further, she says that they will have to “make the best of a bad situation.” 

2. After Bruno and his sister notice the buildings and their smokestacks and the desolate-looking ground, in Chapter Five Bruno is invited into his father's handsome office where his father asks him if he likes their new home. In tears, Bruno tells his father that he wants to return to Berlin; however, he does ask him what goes on in that fenced area behind their home, wondering who the people in the "grey striped pajamas with a grey striped cap on their heads” are doing.

3. In Chapter Ten, Bruno's curiosity gets the better of him as he ignores his father and mother's exhortation to never go near the camp, and he walks along the barbed wire fence. At one point, he sees a hollow-eyed boy whose name he learns is Schmuel; ironically, they discover as they talk that they both have the same birthday. This meeting of Schmuel turns out to be a fateful one for young Bruno.