Trauma and Suffering Between the Page and the Screen – “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”

This study proposes a comparative analysis that shifts between the literary text and its cinematic adaptation, exploring the distinct ways in which innocence, childhood trauma, and the tropes of suffering are configured across two different narrative mediums. The inquiry is grounded in adaptation theory, critical concepts from trauma and memory studies, and research on Holocaust representations, aiming to examine the translatability of these sensitive dimensions within the process of transmedial transfer. The analysis focuses on comparing the techniques through which action, atmosphere, and imagery are evoked, constructed, and sustained throughout the narrative unfolding. At the heart of the investigation lie the mechanisms by which the two mediums convey affect, painful memory, and childhood fragility, revealing how meaning is negotiated in the space between word and image, while also addressing the challenge of rendering such content in an explicit and accessible form in film. This perspective highlights the tension between the ambiguity of the novel and the visibility of the cinema: whereas Boyne constructs trauma through suggestion and silence, entrusting the reader with the task of filling in the “gaps of meaning,” Mark Herman’s adaptation favors immediate emotional impact, relying on the power of imagery, montage, and music. Key scenes unfold across a dual expressive register, introspection and linguistic mediation in the text, versus corporeality and pathos in the film. The two modes of representation are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary, offering converging perspectives on the same trauma and illustrating adaptation as a creative rewriting, situated at the intersection of memory, emotion, and ethics.