Essay --

A true friend is someone you can confide in without fear of being judged or betrayed... It is always good to have a friend in whom you can confide. A true friend is a good listener – one with whom you can share your thoughts and feelings without worrying whether they will judge you or tell other people about you. You should be able to trust a friend, particularly when you are in need of someone to share your problems with..... In â€Å"The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas† by John Boyne, Bruno, the main character is in need of a good friend. He is unhappy, having being forced to move away from his home in Berlin and ‘his three best friends for life’ because his father has a new job. Bruno, his mother and sister accompany the new commandant to the new house at â€Å"Out-With,† as Bruno calls it. This new house is small, dark, and strange. Bruno spends long days gazing out the window of his new bedroom, where he notices people dressed in striped pyjamas and rows of barracks surrounded by a barbed wire fence. With nobody except his sister ‘The Hopeless Case’ to talk to, bored and lonely, and not really understanding the circumstance of his new existence, Bruno sets out to explore the area, despite being forbidden to do so by his parents. He discovers Shmuel, a very thin Jewish boy who lives on the other side of the fence and an unlikely friendship between the two boys is form ed. Over the next few months the two children swap life stories through the wire fence. Shmuel explains how he and his family have been transported here from a ghetto in Poland. Unable to comprehend the gravity of Shmuel’s situation, Bruno is simply content to have found a playmate. In particular he finds it amazing that they are the same age and born on exactly th... ...d hegathers himself and makes a clear decision to face his fear in order to help his friend.... Even when the two boys have been herded into the gas chambers about to face their death, Bruno stands by his friend, holding Shmuel’s hand, forgetting even the names of his friends in Berlin and saying that Shmuel is one true friend for life. To conclude, Bruno and Shmuel’s friendship is both strange and genuine. Bruno confides in Shmuel, at first, because he is lonely and innocent. However as the novel develops their friendship grows into something authentic which crosses the boundaries of race, religion and culture. Over the course of the novel there are times when the friendship is tested, threatened and almost betrayed but Bruno and Shmuel remain true to their friendship even in the darkest and devastating of endings...At the end they died together...