Analyse af 'The Littlest Hitler' af Ryan Boudinot

The Littlest Hitler is a short story written by Ryan Boudinot. The story was first published in Mississippi Review in the fall of 2002 and also appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003. Davy is a polite and friendly 4th grader, who chooses to dress up as Hitler for Halloween. He is very excited about the costume, which he and his father have made, and looks forward to showing off in the school. Unfortunately the kids and even the teacher, Mrs. Thompson, were more shocked then excited, in some ways even offensive. But it all breaks down, when one of the popular girls is dressed up as Anna Frank, who was a Jew doing the World War II. Instantly the kids are becoming more unfriendly and it doesn’t take long before Davy burst into tears. He makes it home alright to tell his disappointed father about his day. Then his father takes him to the store looking for a new costume trying to save, what’s left of Halloween. Davy is upset and torn up, but his father tells him if he doesn’t man up it’s just him and Davy on the couch all night. When they finally come home and Davys father is sleeping, Davy go downstairs into the flaming stove first thinking about throwing his whole bag full of sweats into the fire thinking about the Friedlander family, but instead he eats some candy and then put his hand into the fire trying to understand how horrifying it must have been for the Jews. Davys father isn’t like any other parent, at least that’s what Davy thinks, because he isn’t living by the same “rules” like the rest of the parents and adults. He looks and threats Davy in a way, which on the one side shows respect, but if you look at it without any knowing of the situation people might think that he’s careless and maybe even cruel. It’s clear to see through the story that Davy got big parts of his personality from his father and the way he has raised him. The main themes in the story is morale and to know the different of right and wrong. In the end of the story, Davy reaches into the stove to see how far he could go before it really started to hurt. He wanted to know and feel how the Jews felt, when they were sent to concentration camps, where they got burned alive. At that moment he realizes how bad a person Hitler really was. He already knew that Hitler was a cruel man, who slaughtered and tortured the Jews, but now he understood why the kids and the teachers at the school had looked at him with those eyes. Many people might think Hitler is one of the evilest men, who have ever lived, and therefore don’t think its okay to dress up as Hitler for Halloween, because then you are giving people the expression that you don’t care about what he have done to the Jews and the rest of the world.