John Boyne’s Representation of the Shoah in The Boy in…

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_6782
dc.title	John Boyne’s Representation of the Shoah in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Paradigm of Transgression and Linguistic Uncertainties
dc.contributor.author	Canani Marco
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/english-literature/2021/1/john-boynes-representation-of-the-shoah-in-the-boy/
dc.description.abstract	This article argues that transgression provides an illuminating critical category to examine the narrative construction of John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006). Boyne’s decision to entrust his testimonial narrative to Bruno, the son of an SS commander, produces a representational uncertainty that is reminiscent of Theodor Adorno’s claims on post-Auschwitz aesthetics. Bruno’s fictional testimony is marked by a difficulty in conceptualising experience via language, which reveals voids in his cognizance of reality. This epistemic modality, however, is transgressed by the interaction of words and images in the film version of the novel.
dc.relation.ispartof	English Literature
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 8 \| December 2021
dc.issued	2022-03-16
dc.dateAccepted	2021-11-16
dc.dateSubmitted	2021-09-21
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2420-823X
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2021/08/012
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Children’s literature
dc.subject	Cognition
dc.subject	Cultural memory
dc.subject	Discourse studies
dc.subject	Shoah

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

John Boyne’s Representation of the Shoah in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: A Paradigm of Transgression and Linguistic Uncertainties

Marco Canani Università degli Studi «Gabriele d’Annunzio» Chieti-Pescara, Italia

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abstract

This article argues that transgression provides an illuminating critical category to examine the narrative construction of John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006). Boyne’s decision to entrust his testimonial narrative to Bruno, the son of an SS commander, produces a representational uncertainty that is reminiscent of Theodor Adorno’s claims on post-Auschwitz aesthetics. Bruno’s fictional testimony is marked by a difficulty in conceptualising experience via language, which reveals voids in his cognizance of reality. This epistemic modality, however, is transgressed by the interaction of words and images in the film version of the novel.

Published

March 16, 2022

Accepted

Nov. 16, 2021

Submitted

Sept. 21, 2021

Language

Keywords: Shoah • Cultural memory • Discourse studies • Cognition • Children’s literature

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2021/08/012

Copyright: © 2021 Marco Canani. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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