Chapter 6

In this chapter Bruno takes out his anger to Maria, their maid, over moving from Berlin to Out-With. Since the beginning of the book I consider Maria to be a secondary character. But after reading the story of her earlier life and how she reach on working with Bruno’s family it changed everything, sort of as Bruno said giving her a more human characteristic. Also this specific fragment showed a more caring and considerate part of Bruno that we haven’t seen before in the book. In comparison to Gretel, whom interrupted Bruno and Maria’s conversation and in a very demanding and demining way ordered Maria to run her a bath, to what Bruno intervened saying that she’s not their puppet that can do everything for them all the time, especially things that they can do themselves; to what Gretel only answer “because she’s the maid”, which sounds as Gretel was putting down Maria and treating her like a slave or an object, instead of a person with feelings. His sister attitude and reaction made Bruno feel embarrassed and ashamed of being related to her. This not only shows that even though they might be raised the same way, they think and are different. There was a quote that really showed how Gretel didn’t think about Maria as a person, but as a maid that is there to do everything for her, “because unlike Bruno she never stopped to think about the fact that Maria was a person with feelings just like hers..”.