MAUS II

When I was reading Maus II, I didn't particularly like how it started because I just finished reading Maus I. I wanted to jump into the story of Auschwitz, and it was taking awhile. I can be impatient. As expected, I see that Vladek lives through Auschwitz better than the other Jewish prisoners. Being taken into a concentration camp, it's probably not right to say they were even prisoners in the eyes of the Nazis. It seemed interesting at the end of chapter 2 when Vladek attempts to sleep that he cries out the same way as one of the other Jews that was expecting death. It seems that Vladek, no matter how lucky, was expecting death in the concentration camp. You can see that if it was not for Vladek's luck, he would be dead earlier. We can see soon after Vladek's cry before sleeping that Art gases the insects that bother him. I feel as though there is some kind of reference that in the eyes of the Nazis, the Jews were just annoying little pests that had to be taken care of in order to have peace in Germany. Vladek finishes his story with an ironic twist saying that Anja and he lived "happy happy ever after." I thought it was also interesting in the end of the book how instead of saying Art, Vladek says "Richieu." It seems that through the "happy happy ever after," a kind of fairy tale raconteuring, Vladek wishes that the son he grew to live with was Richieu.