Maus Book I

Art Spiegelman does a fantastic job of taking an issue that is so real and intense, and is able to make it so accesible to readers. The Holocaust was such a tragic event in the worlds history and a lot of people are only aware that many people died, but there is so much more to the issue. There is the mental effects, economical damage, the social distinctions, and the abuse that haunts the victims to this day.

The 1st half of the reading of Maus gave you background information to issues you would soon read into the 2nd portion of our reading. Page 5-6 are an example of a flashback that you may not of directly understood at 1st, but as you continue in the book, you begin to understand what Vladek is saying to Artie when he says," If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week..THEN you should see what it is, friends!" my initial thought was wow, what a unsensitive father talking to a small child like that, but I learned to realize that the mental damage done to Vladek wont allow him to see things in such a simple picture, the Holocaust has cause him to not be able to sympathize with his son on any level less than the struggle he had to put up with.

The art helped visually connect what was happening in the story and made it more aesthically pleasing to the mind. It helped create the situations. When Artie comes home, I soon realize that the Vladek is a very picky and stubborn man because he yells at Mala for not putting his sons jacket on the wooden hanger. The fathers intentions may be good, but the way he expresses is reflects poorly on his character. Artie has come to ask his dad about his experience about his life in Poland and the war. Of course you can assume that it is about the Holocaust by the book cover, but if there was not a cover, by paying attention to detail you would see on pg. 12 that his father has number labeled on his arm that let you know he was a Jew and that he was then, a Holocaust victim.

The 1st half was very crucial to the rest of the novel because so much information pertaining to things we read at the end of the 1st half and all of the 2nd half were at least mentioned in the beginning. Artie is trying to make this story real, so the little deatils have an affective impact on how "real" Vladeks story becomes. On page 32, the unofficial point in the novel where nazi rule begins to take place. The nazi flag is in the air, but not depicted as a "complete" nazi flag which could signify that german occupancy is not in full effect yet, maybe a sense of foreshadowing?

Vladeks relationship with his son is very different from the relationship Vladek had with his father. Of course to me, that makes sense because things change during different periods of time, but I notice that to Vladek, its more personal than that. Vladek tried to compensate for everything his dad did not do in some sense such as Artie had to eat everything on the plate etc... When Speigelman begins with Vladek entering the Holocaust, it becomes so intense and real. The issues did happen and its frustrating to know that nothing was being done to change this.

The 2nd portion of our reading was very detailed and specific about certain issues. It is affective that speigelman would do this because again, it makes this more personal and easier for the reader to relate to. For the 1st portion of the Holocaust, Vladeks family had it pretty nice compared to others because they had money, but we soon learned that money could not sustain them forever. A point in the novel that bothered me was on pg. 83, when Vladek discuessed how Nahum Cohn and his son along with 2 others were hanged. You could tell this bothered him because it was the cover picture to chapter 4, and it affected him so much that he could not leave the house for days.

Swtiching from the story to Artie and Vladek, you can see patterns of things that still carry on in Vladek from the war. He is very independent and stingy wtih money. He eventually reads a comic made by Artie that really deters his mood. Anja was very important to Vladek and any memory of her haunts him.

It is amazing to see how Anja and Vladek make it SO CLOSE to being free, when they are eventually hoaxed into a trap. The pictures have made reading this novel very easy while obsorbing so much knowledge. The novel is very easy to read, and honestly doesnt require much reading, but attention to detail. So much is unsaid in the comic than said. Spiegelman does a fantastic job at bringing this into reality for the reader.