In this book, compared to Maus I, the reader got more insight on Art and his feelings. We got to see how he was struggling with writing the book and how making it a comic book was even more stressful. He talks about Richieu and how his parents adored their dead son more than him. The picture of Richieu hung on their wall, which is another symbol of Art’s parents unable to let go of the past. Art seemed to have been jealous of him his whole life, and it’s sad because he was competing with a ghost. He also mentioned how he had dreams of S.S. men and debated on which of his parents he would let the Nazi’s kill. The fact he would save his mother was very interesting. In book I, in the Prisoner of the Hell Planet, I got a sense that Art resented his mother. Now we are seeing he had rather have her alive than his father. These thoughts make it sound as if Art himself was in the Holocaust. The history and trauma from his parents was passed down to Art. The way his parents raised him all the way to his own feelings, all revolved around the Holocaust. The part where he feared his shower would let out gas instead of water was an odd fear for a child. Art’s anxieties lead me to believe his parents were obsessed with the Holocaust and could never move past the distress they experienced there. Art yearned so badly to connect with his parents and be able to relate to them, that he goes so far as to say he wished he was in Auschwitz with them. Growing up, there had to be an imaginary wall between Art and his parents where he could never seem to feel what the felt. He was never able to relate to them or they to him. I think it was interesting how Art Spiegleman put himself out there and showed his true feelings. He didn’t allow the fear of other’s judgments sway him from putting it all out there. Art’s feelings are not abnormal at all. Many of the other second-generation survivors, who read this book, were probably able to empathize with Art. Art was probably seeking understanding from others since he was constantly trying to find answers from his parents but ended up resenting them for not getting any.
Vanessa Previl After reading the first part of Maus II, I begin to better understand why Artie, a grown man, is still searching for his self. Not only did he have to compete with his father who survived the Holocaust, he also had to compete with the ghost of his older brother who died before he was even born. Now I can see why growing up as a second generation Holocaust survivor can be tough, especially on Artie. To have one, or even worse, both parents as victims of the Holocaust who cannot get away from the past and to compete with your father and a young dead brother who you never meet can take a downward toll on an individual with a lot of guilt. And in part II, it can be seen that there is a lot of guilt. Guilt came from those who had survived, which is reasonable – some may question why did I survive and not their friend. According to Pavel, Vladek had quilt so he took that guilt out on Artie. Artie had quilt for not being there during the war and for proving his father wrong by being successful. I have never thought about the aftermath of the Holocaust and how it trickled down generations until now – it caused damaged physically and mentally.
I do agree with Erika that in this book Art started to show more what he felt than to show what went on with his father. During the first book we mainly saw the experience of his dad and how he treated Art, but we never really see until the end how he really feels about his father. This book he started opening himself more and explaining what was growing up with parents from the holocaust and how it had made him the way he was. He was not a normal child and everything that his parents carried he in someway also carry it even though he did not truly understood what went on in those times in some way he knew and he suffered all the war too. I believe that Art was always more close to his mother and when she committed suicide and wrote that book rather than resentment it was more that he did no knew what will be of his life now living alone with his father. We see in the first book, how he is always more interested about what her mom went through rather than his dad in some way his mom was always more fascinating to him, she was the unknown.
Unlike Maus, Maus II goes into more detail about Vladek’s experiences in the various camps he is sent to throughout the Holocaust along with his eventual escape and reuniting with Anja. What I began to notice in Maus II was the easiest way to tell the difference between past and present. In the present, Vladek’s English is terrible and is spoken with an obvious Eastern European sense of grammar. However, when Vladek’s in the past, his dialogue with other people is flawless. This is so because what many American people fail to understand is that the Holocaust wasn’t spoken in English unlike everything that is today. The main languages used during this period of time were German, Yiddish, and Polish. This style of writing reminded me of I.B. Singer who refused to write in English and had to have his works translated by Saul Bellow because he believed that Jewish stories and histories needed to be written in their native language. In Maus II we are also shown the true reason of Vladek’s stinginess concerning food and money. Throughout the second part, along with the ending of the first book, Vladek’s life is saved through bartering for goods and instances where he is able to get a few more crumbs just to put extra energy in his system. A main part where we see this at is when Vladek becomes sick from Typhus after moving to the Dachau concentration camp. He becomes extremely ill and is saved by conserving his rations that he was not eating and dispensing them to people who would aid him to keep him as healthy as he could be. This isn’t the only instance where food plays a survival aiding role, but it is a solid moment in identifying Vladek’s concern with not wasting any bit of food. The most interesting point of the book to me was the scene in which Francoise, Art, and Vladek picked up a hitchhiker while returning home from the supermarket. After the man gets in, Vladek discriminates against the man for being black and talks badly about him in Polish the entire ride. After the man gets out of the car, Vladek and Francoise yell at each other about what happened. As Francoise says, Vlaek should be the last person to discriminate against other people, which is entirely true. Vladek gives off of a sort of Nazi discrimination against this black man while in the car, he does not care who he is as a person, but by the way he looks, he generalizes him with other black people he has encountered who wronged him. This was basically Hitler’s and his Nazi’s mentality that fueled the events of the Holocaust.
I agree with Brett on everything he says and really like his point about Vladek's English in the present vs. the past. This is something that I didn't notice. I feel as though Vladek comes off as bit controlling and crazy in the first part. After getting more of his backstory in this half, many of his actions now seem justified. I also agree with Brett that this makes Vladek's discrimination very surprising. You would never suspect a man that has gone though what he has to display this type of behavior. Maybe this is just me, but I thought it was interesting that this chapter ends with Vladek being shaded in black in the last panel. We know from the narrative that Art does not agree with his father's actions in this case. Here he could be showing graphically how similar Vladek's father is to the person he discriminates against by doing this. And by doing this showing the problems with his father's actions and his disapproval.
As Brett says in the second novel Vladek spends a lot of time in the Nazi concentration camps. This second half had an extremely darkness to along with some were powerful images. One of the things that stuck out to me most during my reading was the prisoner who claimed he was German. He is first drawn as a cat, but then is a mouse after the Nazi's reject his claims. A statement here is made that during the war the only thing that made someone Jewish is if the Nazi's decided they were. And they could decided this anyway they wanted at the time, since they were in control.
The ending to the novel seemed very powerful and well done to me. We see a human picture of Vladek near the end, which stands out so much from the rest of the book. The last panel being a picture of Vladek's grave is an image that will stick will reader's long after they have finished reading.
I also agree with Brett's points and feel much closer to Vladek and Art in Maus II. In Maus I, I did not feel as much emotion and guilt in Art as I do now. He clearly feels guilty about the time spent in the Holocaust by his father and the Jewish civilization as a whole. He does not feel that he deserves his lax lifestyle. We can see the progression in emotion of Art from Maus I to II. He was first after the story and now has shifted towards an ambition for worthiness. The references to his brother signify this yearning for worthiness because he is never treated with the same respect as a child. His brother suffered an ill fate and there is nothing Art could do about it, but he is still treated like a second hand item. I assumed that the language during the Holocaust was not English but multiple European languages and feel that the proper English was provided by Art and his portrayal. I believe that there were instances during Vladek's recollection where Art had to translate and transform the story in order to please the American audience. I understand the connection you made with Singer and Bellow but believe that this work could not produce the same effect if it were in Yiddish and/or translated from yiddish. I agree with Britton's point about the darkness of the second part of Maus. We are opened to a world of pain and torture implemented by the Nazis against innocent people. It pained me to read certain portions of the book knowing the reality of the situation. The inhumanity of Holocaust is unbelievable and certainly is the darkest time in history. In all, i enjoyed coming closer to the characters in this first portion of Maus II, but am disheartened to read the monstrous acts of the Nazis.
Chynna Humphrey In reading the first part of Maus 2, I still find myself feeling that same eagerness to read on and find out more about the characters and what happens to them. Art Speigelman continues to make the Holocaust a very accessible topic for a wide range of people through this second book as well. However, there are some very clear differences in content between the two stories. I feel as if Maus 2 focuses more on the relationship between Art and his father and the reader can get more insight on the characters emotions and reactions to certain occurrences in their lives; whereas Maus 1 is more focused on merely recounting the stories and history of Vladek’s earlier life. In this second part of the Maus series, Art and Vladek’s guilt become a lot clearer to the reader. Vladek must deal with his survivors’ guilt on a day to day basis, and through him recounting his stories to Art, he too, in turn, must deal with a different kind of guilt. This guilt is due to the fact that he did not have to live through what his parents lived through and he does not have to ever deal with the worries and trauma that his parents and ancestors did. Art almost wishes that he, too, was in the concentration camps so that he could fathom what his parents went through. There also becomes evident Art Speigelman’s guilt as a writer for gaining so much popularity and wealth off of the story of the Holocaust. This is shown in the box on page 41 where Art is sitting at his desk on top of hundreds of mice. This represents not only his second hand survivor’s guilt, but the fact that him telling his father’s story has led to his success in life. He’s essentially using and taking advantage of these dead Jewish people for his own person gain and prosperity. I also find it interesting how he utilizes animals and masks to demonstrate race. On this same page (41), we see Art sitting at his desk as a human wearing a mouse mask. I think this demonstrates Art’s inability to relate to the generation of Jewish people. Basically he’s starting to doubt himself as a Jewish person because he did not have to fight for or cope with the hardships of the Holocaust, as so many of his predecessors did.
Throughout Maus 1 I was always wanting to read ahead and now starting Maus 2 I feel the same way. I was extremely curious to see is Maus 2 would just continue on with the awful holocaust stories or if it would be a different setting, like maybe about Artie finding his own way and writing the book. I love how Speigleman continues to include the Holocaust so far in Maus 2. To me, it is such a touchy but yet such an incredible even to read about because it seems so unreal. Maus 2 does seem to focus more on relationships and more on emotions, which is a good thing to me because this way the reader is able to relate to the story and the characters more. In Maus 1 it was more of Vladek's sad story about surviving the Holocaust and although it was an emotional topic, you never really saw that much of a relationship between Artie and his father. When he wasn't telling stories about the Holocaust, then it was constant arguing and bickering. In Maus 2 we have already been opened up to new information like Chynna mentioned about Vladek's daily survivor guilt. You can also tell the intensity Artie is gaining from his fathers stories to the point were he wishes he went through the same thing. Maus 2 seems more personal and I am excited to read on.
I love the choice of titles that Spiegelman has chosen for both of these pieces. When I first started to read Maus I, I wasn’t sure what to make of the phrase “My Father Bleeds History” in general. I worked through the book and the relationship between the title and the content was absolutely perfect in my opinion. So, preparing myself to complete the second piece, I had a better idea as to what to expect just based solely on the title. One of my favorite sections of this book is the chapter “Time Flies”. I feel that it is the most revealing of all of the chapters in the ways that it really gives you a deep insight of what Art went through in the making of the first book. When he is explaining the interview processes he went through, he doesn’t sugar-coat or edit any of the feelings he had towards the meaning behind the book.I really enjoyed the way he illustrated those sections of the book, as well. You see many of the people wearing masks, just as he and Anja had to do I the first book to hide their identities. I feel that this was the only part of the book where it was really acceptable to put everyone in the masks. You get a personal glimpse inside of his relationship with Francoise, too, and we see an understanding and patient side to Art that we didn’t really get to see with Art and his father in the first book. The part that really intrigued me the most about this piece, though, is the very last page. As a whole, I honestly think it is one of the most powerful pages that I’ve not just read, but interpreted as an illustration as well. The placement of every element is so detailed, and if you don’t really and truly examine it, it would be very easy to miss the importance. The page can be interpreted as moving from the bottom up, as well as traditionally from the top down, but it has an entirely different meaning depending on which way you look at it. I love the placement of the Star of David directly in the middle of the last two panels where Vladek is up and facing Art and the reader in one panel, then lying down, tired and ready to sleep in the second. I believe that the Star of David placed in the very center of the panels represents the persistence of Jews as a whole and that recurring theme of historic religion and struggle. Spiegelman also places the Eternal Flame directly underneath that but still in the middle, representing the same thing. The little details like this are the elements that really made me enjoy this piece even more than the first one.
I strongly agree with Jasmine in respects to the idea that I found the smaller details of this story to be most interesting. In the first book, as a reader, I had to adjust to his style of writing and illustrating. I didn’t really know what I was looking for. However after discussing the first book in class I understood the concept that Spiegelman does everything on purpose whether that is in his illustrations or in the text. Therefore when reading the second part I felt more confident as to what I was looking for. I took time to look at the pages more in depth and really figure out what he was trying to say with each panel. Likewise I agree with Jasmine when she says that the Time Flies chapter was her favorite. Once I finally understood the reference to flies being carries of time, I felt like I understood the book better as a whole. These flies are swarming around his desk (due to the dead mice nearby). I think these panels are so powerful because Spiegelman is trying to illustrate how time is like a pest, constantly nagging at the present and constantly reoccurring. It is the idea of time and the role that the past plays on the present that shapes Maus as a whole.
While Maus I was more about learning about Art and Vladek’s relationship while hearing Vladek tell his story of survival through the first part of the war, in Maus II we get to see more of what Art is feeling and the stresses of his life as well as getting to hear Vladek’s story of survival once in the camps. We are left off in Maus I with Vladek telling us about arriving at Auschwitz and Art becoming frustrated with his father about getting rid of his mother’s diary. In Maus II, we open with Art struggling with his writing, he feels as though he is being bombarded by everyone who has read Maus I. After that we learn that his father is in poor health and wants Art to come stay with him for the summer. During this time, you can see that there is still a lot of strain in their relationship and it almost seems as though Vladek is realizing his life is coming to an end and he really just wants to right all wrongs before he dies. Art on the other hand seems more reluctant and says he only wants to stay for a few days.
Being a family first kind of person, I find the strain in their relation to be childish and I simply think it is stupid. Of course, I have no clue what their lives have been like up until that point, but I am a firm believer that if you really want something to be right and you put in the time and effort to make it right, that things will find a way to work themselves out in the end. If I was in Art’s shoes and my father was sick and wanted me to stay with him the whole summer, I wouldn’t even hesitate to say yes. But again, that is just me.
The other thing that caught my attention was the ending. Not only did it end very abruptly, but Vladek also called Art by his deceased brother’s name, Richieu. I feel like this was just Art’s way of putting the cherry on top of his relationship with his father. Did his father actually call him Richieu or was this Art’s way of spicing up the story? I personally do not think that this part actually happened and was just Art adding a big moment into the very abrupt ending.
I find it interesting that you find the central conflict of the work to be "stupid".” From your response, it seems you feel that Art is not trying hard enough to make amends with his father. However, I would argue that one of the main points of Maus (indeed if not the main personal motivation for the author) is for Art Spiegelman to better understand his father, and thus himself.
Spiegelman gives the reader a taste of the effect his family life had on his psyche by including the comic within the graphic novel, “Prisoner on the Hell Planet.” He has just been released from psychiatric treatment and is living with his parents, sneaking around with a girlfriend his parents don’t like, and comes home to find his mother has killed herself. I don’t know about you, but that situation screams dysfunctional to me.
You also brought up the conclusion of the novel. This is another situation that pretty clearly demonstrates why Art found it difficult to put family first. When Vladek calls Art by his dead brother's name, it dramatizes the burden of survivor's guilt Art has had to bear his whole life as the child of survivors. His family was not liberated from the Holocaust when the Allies entered Auschwitz, they were already beginning to serve their life-time sentences.
This second part to Maus is definitely more insightful upon Art’s feelings and the dynamics between him and Vladek. I do not agree with the term “stupid” either, because I feel there is a deeply rooted conflict with legit reasons. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel that I have my own personal traumas and resentments toward my parents, and they were not Holocaust survivors, so I cannot even begin to imagine what resentments I would have had I been brought up with parents having a concentration camp, war- survivor outlook on life. It is clear, even from the first part that Artie has some resentment toward his father in part for not being able to fully let go of the past, and still living with the war mentality. But as Isabel mentioned the story is not only about the Holocaust, but also about a son’s discovery of his father’s history, of his own history in an attempt to assimilate with his own troubles and his relationship with his father, hence the title of the second part. So to say that it is childish, I feel like perhaps you are missing the importance of their conflict, and how that in it of itself is a powerful driving force as to why the book even exist. I too consider myself to be family oriented, and found myself feeling upset with Artie for not being more attentive to his senile father, but I feel like the reactions and dynamics depicted in the story seem genuine and leave me to wonder about what I aforementioned; what it would be like to have Vladek as a father, and how that would affect me, and in thinking this I feel Artie’s internal and external issues with his father and how he manifest and deals with them are realistic and genuine of someone trying to discover and understand themselves.
In the second half of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the reader gets more insight into the feelings Art has towards his father. In reading the first half of the novel, Maus I: My Father Bleeds History, the reader learns about the estranged relationship Artie has with his father. Artie’s feeling of affection and empathy towards his father are only subtly revealed through images in the first section of the book. However, in my personal opinion, Artie is possibly using this process of interviewing his father as a means to renew his relationship with him. After hearing a person talk about their memories of past trauma over an extended amount of time, one begins to empathetically share the same memories that the other person does and often times constitutes them as their own memories. I think that it is a definite possibility that Artie is using this mutual, empathetic remembrance of his father’s memories as a means to share something in common with his father again, thus rekindling the estranged relationship he has with him. On the other hand, the second half of the novel, titled And Here my Troubles Began, gives the reader a better idea of the slow, but steady, opening up of Artie’s feelings of confusion toward he and his father’s relationship. Right off the bat, Artie experiences this awkward moment of confusing and conflicting feelings when his father calls acting as if there is an emergency. On page 13, Artie gets a phone call from his father and starts reacting as if something is wrong. The tone of this section shows that Artie is concerned for his father, but at the same time he feels a bit hesitant to these caring feelings, especially in the third panel when he says, “Yes..I…um…love you too.” This hesitation to express these feelings to his father in a possible crisis show that he yearns for a better relationship with his father, yet he feels conflicted over the fact that they have not expressed these feelings towards one another in quite some time. Furthermore, when Artie finds out that his father is only kidding, he doesn’t know whether to be upset or amused. In the second half of Spiegelman’s Maus, the reader starts getting more insight into the influence and background of the second narrator. I think that the final product of the story, although a narration of the interviews with his father, Spiegelman clearly tells his father’s story with a lot of influence from his own thoughts and feelings. I’m excited to read the rest of Maus II to see where the narrative takes us.
Firstly this is a really good post; well written and great support with analysis of the novel. Although you could be right in the fact that Artie is using the process of interviewing his father as a means to getting closer to him, I feel as though you may be giving Artie too much credit. From my interpretation of the novel, it seems as though Artie is pretty selfish in his acquisition of his father's story. This could be because he is just interested and invested in the story itself, or because he just wants to write a kick ass book. The way he treats his father shows they have a strained relationship, but I don't really feel as though Artie is spending time with his father to ameliorate this tension. The only time Artie seems to be in a good mood is when he is interviewing his father, and he is constantly interrupting his father's complaints about health or his general life events, showing he is really only interested in the story. After his father has a heart attack, literally minutes later Artie is back to interviewing him and letting him go on with his tale. Sorry but that seems a little fucked up to me. Let the guy take a break and maybe just talk to him about how he is doing instead of asking him to describe the gas ovens in Auschwitz. To me, if he was working to better his relationship with his father, he would be more invested in his father's current life, instead of constantly sloughing him off as a problem unless he can get a good hour of recording out of him.
Maus 2 is even more depressing that the first book. It story of what survival is like once they are in the concentration camp is even more depressing than them trying to avoid capture. Here I think Spiegelman is really trying to pull on the emotions of the readers. While the topic he is telling is naturally telling is very sad and depressing the way he draws the images makes it even more depressing. Spiegelman is such a talented artist that he could truly make the images give off any emotional appeal he wanted. He could have made the story have a not as depressing appeal. But instead he choice to make it extremely depressing. He it trying to bring the emotional appeal to the story so that the readers can get a true impression of how bad the Holocaust was. It is his way of letting the readers experience the holocaust. This goes to speak of how talented Spiegelman truly is. He I ability to draw and show the emotion of the characters on their faces and with the body expressions is truly amazing. He is very gifted and talented because of his ability to make the reader feel the way the feel. His structure of drawing is truly amazing. The frame work that he uses and the body placement of each charter to know who the focus is, is extremely important. He has mastered the drawing of human emotion and taken it to the next level by putting theses human expressions on the animals. He does this in such an amazing fashion that, when you take the time to look at it is truly astonishing. Spiegelman truly makes you feel that these animals have extreme human like personally because they are in fact human. The presentation of humans by animals is another great feat that is accomplished by Spiegelman. The way he is able to intertwine the physical characters of both humans and animals is astonishing. He makes the characters seem physically exactly like the Animal they are but at the same time shows how they are physically human. This is important to show the symbolism of the animals not to represent humans but to represent the culture that each person is a is a part of . The use of the symbolism truly goes into explain the genius that is Spiegelman’s Art in Maus 2. And this is why the book is so enjoyable and interesting to read. Word Count: 411
In Maus 2, I noticed a change in Art throughout the book. He started off the same way he was in the first book, but you could clearly tell that he changed throughout the book. He started appreciating his father and you could see that he truly missed him. I have to admit that I personally got very sad when Vladek died. When I was reading the first book, it made me feel very sympathetic towards Vladek because he was so sick. I think the way Art wrote the book may have contributed to that. I don’t know if Art purposely did that or if it was just how I perceived it, but it seemed as if the novel was drawn out to make you feel for Vladek. Even though a lot of the stuff he did was annoying and rude, I still felt for him more than anybody else. I thought it was weird that Vladek was racist towards black people considering what he went through and it actually made me kind of upset (I think Art should’ve left that out because it made his father look bad). From doing my paper, I realized an important part of the novel that I wouldn’t have noticed without doing it. English was a metaphor used to represent survival. English in particular was used as both a love tool and a survival tool. Vladek was able to speak and understand English, helping him survive in Auschwitz and engage in a relationship with Anja. Another thing that baffled me with these stories was the Vladek’s relationship with Mala. I don’t think that he should’ve married her. He clearly was using her to try and get over Anja, but I don’t think it worked because he clearly never got over her. I thought that the relationship he had with Anja was absolutely adorable. The countless risks he took trying to save her showed how much he truly cared about her. Although Vladek was stingy, cheap and dramatic, you could clearly see that he was a caring man and that the most important people in his life were everyone but himself. He truly cared and loved Art and I think that Art realized that after he passed. All in all, I thought that Maus and Maus II were extremely well written books. They both presented the Holocaust in its true lights and so many emotions were evoked in me from reading them. Even though I have read these books twice, I still wouldn’t mind reading them again because they were so well written.
Alex, I completely agree with what you are saying here in regards to Art changing a lot over the course of the second book. But just as you said, for the most part, I could just not get over all of the ridiculous stories that his father had about his lover Mala that he unsuccessfully tried to use to get over the loss of Anja. No matter what he did though, he could not replace what Anja had given him no matter what. And I have to say, I was upset as well when Art’s father died and I hope you are right about Art understanding how much his father loved him because without that realization I don’t even want to know where he would end up. Both the Maus books were so well written, I had never experienced such an awesome representation of Jewish life that deals with both the terrible holocaust history, and the growth of Jewish-America. The one thing I do disagree with that you said is that you wish that Spiegelman would have left out the racist comments by his father. I feel as though the racist comments belong in there because those mainly came with times and the way society thought and operated then.
I agree that I did feel bad when Vladek died. There were some aspects of him that I too did not like, but he is human and everyone does not only have good qualitites. I think that it was important that Art show the good and the bad of his father because it is what makes the book real. Art set out to tell his father's story, which is not always pretty or show the good side of those in it. I also thought it was interesting in the way you found English as a metaphor for survival, I honestly did not think of it but you are absolutly right. I think that Vladek is a damged man and that he is still recovering over Anja's death and the events of the past. I think that he does care for Mala, he may not really show it but I think he does. I think you picked up on some really interesting things and I too enjoyed the stories.
Maus I the reader got a good sense of the background story with Vladek and Anja, Artie’s parents. He goes very in depth of their lives in hiding and pre-Auschwitz time. I think in book one we also get more of a sense of Art and Vladek’s relationship with one another, how they interact and such. Maus 2 got a little more serious with the story of Auschwitz. I think here we discover why Vladek is the way he is in a lot of ways, for example how he is stingy concerning food and money because of how little he had, and how little he learned to survive on. It was very heart wrenching when Vladek died because I think the comic strip style of the writing made us become a part of the story. We were step-by-step, frame-by-frame in Vladek’s memories, and I think that enables the reader to almost place themselves in the story too. Usually in a novel the readers have to use their imaginations to create a picture that the words are making for them, but here we are able to see Artie’s perspective of his father’s story and I think that is why most everyone stated they were sad upon his death. I found it quite interesting when Vladek, Artie, and Francoise picked up the hitchhiker while on their way home from the market. Vladek of all people took an extreme sense of prejudice towards the black man, talking rudely about him in Polish the entire ride back. Francoise later yells at Vladek telling him he should be the last person to discriminate against other people considering on all he has been through. I’m confused as to why he acts this way? Why after all his suffering, all the hate brought upon him and what he’s been through has he turned bitter in the presence of another race? I think Vladek should’ve been able to be more relatable to this man than any of them but instead is he taking advantage of a race he deems as “below him” just as his way of payback for what he was put through?
Cristina Diaz Spiegelman is back at it and definitely not selling himself short with the creation of Maus II. First off, it's important to note that you can clearly see his evolution as a writer but also as an artist simply by reading both his comic books. More eager that ever before, I must admit, I read the entire book in one sitting. Spiegelman is astute at capturing his reader's attention until the actual end and manipulating it through the intertwining use of imagery and voice. Evidently, Maus I is mostly concerned with the past. Here, Spiegelman spends more time discussing his father's life as a Holocaust survivor. In Maus II we see that he incorporates more of the present. Introducing his wife and sharing current dynamics between his father, himself, his wife and the present world. My favorite instance of this is the car ride to the grocery store where Vladek is determined to return open although unfinished food. He is successful, this showing what his past made of the man he is today. This is precisely what Artie uncovers through his concern and desire about writing and learning about his fathers past. Of course, one wonders how factual the story actually is; and I have been asking myself this most of all, with the character of Mala. She to me allows for the natural development of the story. Actually a lot of Mala's actions directly influence Vladek, therefore the whole storyline in general. At times I feel as if Spiegelman molded the character of Mala to his necessities as an author, in the creation of the story he wanted to share. This is normal in fiction but not when one is trying to recount history which throughout the books one gets the feeling that this is what he is trying to do. Many times, he deters his father from focusing on the present and continuously prompts him (to the point of frustration at times) to proceed speaking of the past, the holocaust instead. All in all, it was entertaining to learn more about his relationship with his father something which had been lingering in the air and up for grabs in Maus I. In Maus II he solidifies this, and definitely shows their son and father bond or at times non-bond. Although if it wasn't for the first book where one learns more about the father and why he is who he is today, I would probably have had Artie's same reaction to the old rat. Instead, I find myself becoming frustrated with Artie for the lack of patience he has (even after he learns about his fathers past) with his father. Nonetheless, Art Spiegelman is truly clever. Masterfully, he puts this world concerned with both past and present , together for his reader.
In this book, compared to Maus I, the reader got more insight on Art and his feelings. We got to see how he was struggling with writing the book and how making it a comic book was even more stressful. He talks about Richieu and how his parents adored their dead son more than him. The picture of Richieu hung on their wall, which is another symbol of Art’s parents unable to let go of the past. Art seemed to have been jealous of him his whole life, and it’s sad because he was competing with a ghost. He also mentioned how he had dreams of S.S. men and debated on which of his parents he would let the Nazi’s kill. The fact he would save his mother was very interesting. In book I, in the Prisoner of the Hell Planet, I got a sense that Art resented his mother. Now we are seeing he had rather have her alive than his father. These thoughts make it sound as if Art himself was in the Holocaust. The history and trauma from his parents was passed down to Art. The way his parents raised him all the way to his own feelings, all revolved around the Holocaust. The part where he feared his shower would let out gas instead of water was an odd fear for a child. Art’s anxieties lead me to believe his parents were obsessed with the Holocaust and could never move past the distress they experienced there. Art yearned so badly to connect with his parents and be able to relate to them, that he goes so far as to say he wished he was in Auschwitz with them. Growing up, there had to be an imaginary wall between Art and his parents where he could never seem to feel what the felt. He was never able to relate to them or they to him. I think it was interesting how Art Spiegleman put himself out there and showed his true feelings. He didn’t allow the fear of other’s judgments sway him from putting it all out there. Art’s feelings are not abnormal at all. Many of the other second-generation survivors, who read this book, were probably able to empathize with Art. Art was probably seeking understanding from others since he was constantly trying to find answers from his parents but ended up resenting them for not getting any.
ReplyDeleteVanessa Previl
DeleteAfter reading the first part of Maus II, I begin to better understand why Artie, a grown man, is still searching for his self. Not only did he have to compete with his father who survived the Holocaust, he also had to compete with the ghost of his older brother who died before he was even born. Now I can see why growing up as a second generation Holocaust survivor can be tough, especially on Artie. To have one, or even worse, both parents as victims of the Holocaust who cannot get away from the past and to compete with your father and a young dead brother who you never meet can take a downward toll on an individual with a lot of guilt. And in part II, it can be seen that there is a lot of guilt. Guilt came from those who had survived, which is reasonable – some may question why did I survive and not their friend. According to Pavel, Vladek had quilt so he took that guilt out on Artie. Artie had quilt for not being there during the war and for proving his father wrong by being successful. I have never thought about the aftermath of the Holocaust and how it trickled down generations until now – it caused damaged physically and mentally.
Cristina Vallarino
DeleteI do agree with Erika that in this book Art started to show more what he felt than to show what went on with his father. During the first book we mainly saw the experience of his dad and how he treated Art, but we never really see until the end how he really feels about his father. This book he started opening himself more and explaining what was growing up with parents from the holocaust and how it had made him the way he was. He was not a normal child and everything that his parents carried he in someway also carry it even though he did not truly understood what went on in those times in some way he knew and he suffered all the war too. I believe that Art was always more close to his mother and when she committed suicide and wrote that book rather than resentment it was more that he did no knew what will be of his life now living alone with his father. We see in the first book, how he is always more interested about what her mom went through rather than his dad in some way his mom was always more fascinating to him, she was the unknown.
Unlike Maus, Maus II goes into more detail about Vladek’s experiences in the various camps he is sent to throughout the Holocaust along with his eventual escape and reuniting with Anja. What I began to notice in Maus II was the easiest way to tell the difference between past and present. In the present, Vladek’s English is terrible and is spoken with an obvious Eastern European sense of grammar. However, when Vladek’s in the past, his dialogue with other people is flawless. This is so because what many American people fail to understand is that the Holocaust wasn’t spoken in English unlike everything that is today. The main languages used during this period of time were German, Yiddish, and Polish. This style of writing reminded me of I.B. Singer who refused to write in English and had to have his works translated by Saul Bellow because he believed that Jewish stories and histories needed to be written in their native language.
ReplyDeleteIn Maus II we are also shown the true reason of Vladek’s stinginess concerning food and money. Throughout the second part, along with the ending of the first book, Vladek’s life is saved through bartering for goods and instances where he is able to get a few more crumbs just to put extra energy in his system. A main part where we see this at is when Vladek becomes sick from Typhus after moving to the Dachau concentration camp. He becomes extremely ill and is saved by conserving his rations that he was not eating and dispensing them to people who would aid him to keep him as healthy as he could be. This isn’t the only instance where food plays a survival aiding role, but it is a solid moment in identifying Vladek’s concern with not wasting any bit of food.
The most interesting point of the book to me was the scene in which Francoise, Art, and Vladek picked up a hitchhiker while returning home from the supermarket. After the man gets in, Vladek discriminates against the man for being black and talks badly about him in Polish the entire ride. After the man gets out of the car, Vladek and Francoise yell at each other about what happened. As Francoise says, Vlaek should be the last person to discriminate against other people, which is entirely true. Vladek gives off of a sort of Nazi discrimination against this black man while in the car, he does not care who he is as a person, but by the way he looks, he generalizes him with other black people he has encountered who wronged him. This was basically Hitler’s and his Nazi’s mentality that fueled the events of the Holocaust.
I agree with Brett on everything he says and really like his point about Vladek's English in the present vs. the past. This is something that I didn't notice. I feel as though Vladek comes off as bit controlling and crazy in the first part. After getting more of his backstory in this half, many of his actions now seem justified. I also agree with Brett that this makes Vladek's discrimination very surprising. You would never suspect a man that has gone though what he has to display this type of behavior. Maybe this is just me, but I thought it was interesting that this chapter ends with Vladek being shaded in black in the last panel. We know from the narrative that Art does not agree with his father's actions in this case. Here he could be showing graphically how similar Vladek's father is to the person he discriminates against by doing this. And by doing this showing the problems with his father's actions and his disapproval.
DeleteAs Brett says in the second novel Vladek spends a lot of time in the Nazi concentration camps. This second half had an extremely darkness to along with some were powerful images. One of the things that stuck out to me most during my reading was the prisoner who claimed he was German. He is first drawn as a cat, but then is a mouse after the Nazi's reject his claims. A statement here is made that during the war the only thing that made someone Jewish is if the Nazi's decided they were. And they could decided this anyway they wanted at the time, since they were in control.
The ending to the novel seemed very powerful and well done to me. We see a human picture of Vladek near the end, which stands out so much from the rest of the book. The last panel being a picture of Vladek's grave is an image that will stick will reader's long after they have finished reading.
I also agree with Brett's points and feel much closer to Vladek and Art in Maus II. In Maus I, I did not feel as much emotion and guilt in Art as I do now. He clearly feels guilty about the time spent in the Holocaust by his father and the Jewish civilization as a whole. He does not feel that he deserves his lax lifestyle. We can see the progression in emotion of Art from Maus I to II. He was first after the story and now has shifted towards an ambition for worthiness. The references to his brother signify this yearning for worthiness because he is never treated with the same respect as a child. His brother suffered an ill fate and there is nothing Art could do about it, but he is still treated like a second hand item.
DeleteI assumed that the language during the Holocaust was not English but multiple European languages and feel that the proper English was provided by Art and his portrayal. I believe that there were instances during Vladek's recollection where Art had to translate and transform the story in order to please the American audience. I understand the connection you made with Singer and Bellow but believe that this work could not produce the same effect if it were in Yiddish and/or translated from yiddish.
I agree with Britton's point about the darkness of the second part of Maus. We are opened to a world of pain and torture implemented by the Nazis against innocent people. It pained me to read certain portions of the book knowing the reality of the situation. The inhumanity of Holocaust is unbelievable and certainly is the darkest time in history. In all, i enjoyed coming closer to the characters in this first portion of Maus II, but am disheartened to read the monstrous acts of the Nazis.
Chynna Humphrey
ReplyDeleteIn reading the first part of Maus 2, I still find myself feeling that same eagerness to read on and find out more about the characters and what happens to them. Art Speigelman continues to make the Holocaust a very accessible topic for a wide range of people through this second book as well. However, there are some very clear differences in content between the two stories. I feel as if Maus 2 focuses more on the relationship between Art and his father and the reader can get more insight on the characters emotions and reactions to certain occurrences in their lives; whereas Maus 1 is more focused on merely recounting the stories and history of Vladek’s earlier life.
In this second part of the Maus series, Art and Vladek’s guilt become a lot clearer to the reader. Vladek must deal with his survivors’ guilt on a day to day basis, and through him recounting his stories to Art, he too, in turn, must deal with a different kind of guilt. This guilt is due to the fact that he did not have to live through what his parents lived through and he does not have to ever deal with the worries and trauma that his parents and ancestors did. Art almost wishes that he, too, was in the concentration camps so that he could fathom what his parents went through. There also becomes evident Art Speigelman’s guilt as a writer for gaining so much popularity and wealth off of the story of the Holocaust. This is shown in the box on page 41 where Art is sitting at his desk on top of hundreds of mice. This represents not only his second hand survivor’s guilt, but the fact that him telling his father’s story has led to his success in life. He’s essentially using and taking advantage of these dead Jewish people for his own person gain and prosperity. I also find it interesting how he utilizes animals and masks to demonstrate race. On this same page (41), we see Art sitting at his desk as a human wearing a mouse mask. I think this demonstrates Art’s inability to relate to the generation of Jewish people. Basically he’s starting to doubt himself as a Jewish person because he did not have to fight for or cope with the hardships of the Holocaust, as so many of his predecessors did.
Throughout Maus 1 I was always wanting to read ahead and now starting Maus 2 I feel the same way. I was extremely curious to see is Maus 2 would just continue on with the awful holocaust stories or if it would be a different setting, like maybe about Artie finding his own way and writing the book. I love how Speigleman continues to include the Holocaust so far in Maus 2. To me, it is such a touchy but yet such an incredible even to read about because it seems so unreal. Maus 2 does seem to focus more on relationships and more on emotions, which is a good thing to me because this way the reader is able to relate to the story and the characters more. In Maus 1 it was more of Vladek's sad story about surviving the Holocaust and although it was an emotional topic, you never really saw that much of a relationship between Artie and his father. When he wasn't telling stories about the Holocaust, then it was constant arguing and bickering.
DeleteIn Maus 2 we have already been opened up to new information like Chynna mentioned about Vladek's daily survivor guilt. You can also tell the intensity Artie is gaining from his fathers stories to the point were he wishes he went through the same thing. Maus 2 seems more personal and I am excited to read on.
I love the choice of titles that Spiegelman has chosen for both of these pieces. When I first started to read Maus I, I wasn’t sure what to make of the phrase “My Father Bleeds History” in general. I worked through the book and the relationship between the title and the content was absolutely perfect in my opinion. So, preparing myself to complete the second piece, I had a better idea as to what to expect just based solely on the title. One of my favorite sections of this book is the chapter “Time Flies”. I feel that it is the most revealing of all of the chapters in the ways that it really gives you a deep insight of what Art went through in the making of the first book. When he is explaining the interview processes he went through, he doesn’t sugar-coat or edit any of the feelings he had towards the meaning behind the book.I really enjoyed the way he illustrated those sections of the book, as well. You see many of the people wearing masks, just as he and Anja had to do I the first book to hide their identities. I feel that this was the only part of the book where it was really acceptable to put everyone in the masks. You get a personal glimpse inside of his relationship with Francoise, too, and we see an understanding and patient side to Art that we didn’t really get to see with Art and his father in the first book. The part that really intrigued me the most about this piece, though, is the very last page. As a whole, I honestly think it is one of the most powerful pages that I’ve not just read, but interpreted as an illustration as well. The placement of every element is so detailed, and if you don’t really and truly examine it, it would be very easy to miss the importance. The page can be interpreted as moving from the bottom up, as well as traditionally from the top down, but it has an entirely different meaning depending on which way you look at it. I love the placement of the Star of David directly in the middle of the last two panels where Vladek is up and facing Art and the reader in one panel, then lying down, tired and ready to sleep in the second. I believe that the Star of David placed in the very center of the panels represents the persistence of Jews as a whole and that recurring theme of historic religion and struggle. Spiegelman also places the Eternal Flame directly underneath that but still in the middle, representing the same thing. The little details like this are the elements that really made me enjoy this piece even more than the first one.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with Jasmine in respects to the idea that I found the smaller details of this story to be most interesting. In the first book, as a reader, I had to adjust to his style of writing and illustrating. I didn’t really know what I was looking for. However after discussing the first book in class I understood the concept that Spiegelman does everything on purpose whether that is in his illustrations or in the text. Therefore when reading the second part I felt more confident as to what I was looking for. I took time to look at the pages more in depth and really figure out what he was trying to say with each panel.
DeleteLikewise I agree with Jasmine when she says that the Time Flies chapter was her favorite. Once I finally understood the reference to flies being carries of time, I felt like I understood the book better as a whole. These flies are swarming around his desk (due to the dead mice nearby). I think these panels are so powerful because Spiegelman is trying to illustrate how time is like a pest, constantly nagging at the present and constantly reoccurring. It is the idea of time and the role that the past plays on the present that shapes Maus as a whole.
While Maus I was more about learning about Art and Vladek’s relationship while hearing Vladek tell his story of survival through the first part of the war, in Maus II we get to see more of what Art is feeling and the stresses of his life as well as getting to hear Vladek’s story of survival once in the camps. We are left off in Maus I with Vladek telling us about arriving at Auschwitz and Art becoming frustrated with his father about getting rid of his mother’s diary. In Maus II, we open with Art struggling with his writing, he feels as though he is being bombarded by everyone who has read Maus I. After that we learn that his father is in poor health and wants Art to come stay with him for the summer. During this time, you can see that there is still a lot of strain in their relationship and it almost seems as though Vladek is realizing his life is coming to an end and he really just wants to right all wrongs before he dies. Art on the other hand seems more reluctant and says he only wants to stay for a few days.
ReplyDeleteBeing a family first kind of person, I find the strain in their relation to be childish and I simply think it is stupid. Of course, I have no clue what their lives have been like up until that point, but I am a firm believer that if you really want something to be right and you put in the time and effort to make it right, that things will find a way to work themselves out in the end. If I was in Art’s shoes and my father was sick and wanted me to stay with him the whole summer, I wouldn’t even hesitate to say yes. But again, that is just me.
The other thing that caught my attention was the ending. Not only did
it end very abruptly, but Vladek also called Art by his deceased brother’s name, Richieu. I feel like this was just Art’s way of putting the cherry on top of his relationship with his father. Did his father actually call him Richieu or was this Art’s way of spicing up the story? I personally do not think that this part actually happened and was just Art adding a big moment into the very abrupt ending.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI find it interesting that you find the central conflict of the work to be "stupid".” From your response, it seems you feel that Art is not trying hard enough to make amends with his father. However, I would argue that one of the main points of Maus (indeed if not the main personal motivation for the author) is for Art Spiegelman to better understand his father, and thus himself.
DeleteSpiegelman gives the reader a taste of the effect his family life had on his psyche by including the comic within the graphic novel, “Prisoner on the Hell Planet.” He has just been released from psychiatric treatment and is living with his parents, sneaking around with a girlfriend his parents don’t like, and comes home to find his mother has killed herself. I don’t know about you, but that situation screams dysfunctional to me.
You also brought up the conclusion of the novel. This is another situation that pretty clearly demonstrates why Art found it difficult to put family first. When Vladek calls Art by his dead brother's name, it dramatizes the burden of survivor's guilt Art has had to bear his whole life as the child of survivors. His family was not liberated from the Holocaust when the Allies entered Auschwitz, they were already beginning to serve their life-time sentences.
This second part to Maus is definitely more insightful upon Art’s feelings and the dynamics between him and Vladek. I do not agree with the term “stupid” either, because I feel there is a deeply rooted conflict with legit reasons. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel that I have my own personal traumas and resentments toward my parents, and they were not Holocaust survivors, so I cannot even begin to imagine what resentments I would have had I been brought up with parents having a concentration camp, war- survivor outlook on life. It is clear, even from the first part that Artie has some resentment toward his father in part for not being able to fully let go of the past, and still living with the war mentality. But as Isabel mentioned the story is not only about the Holocaust, but also about a son’s discovery of his father’s history, of his own history in an attempt to assimilate with his own troubles and his relationship with his father, hence the title of the second part. So to say that it is childish, I feel like perhaps you are missing the importance of their conflict, and how that in it of itself is a powerful driving force as to why the book even exist. I too consider myself to be family oriented, and found myself feeling upset with Artie for not being more attentive to his senile father, but I feel like the reactions and dynamics depicted in the story seem genuine and leave me to wonder about what I aforementioned; what it would be like to have Vladek as a father, and how that would affect me, and in thinking this I feel Artie’s internal and external issues with his father and how he manifest and deals with them are realistic and genuine of someone trying to discover and understand themselves.
DeleteStephanie Jones:
ReplyDeleteIn the second half of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the reader gets more insight into the feelings Art has towards his father. In reading the first half of the novel, Maus I: My Father Bleeds History, the reader learns about the estranged relationship Artie has with his father. Artie’s feeling of affection and empathy towards his father are only subtly revealed through images in the first section of the book. However, in my personal opinion, Artie is possibly using this process of interviewing his father as a means to renew his relationship with him. After hearing a person talk about their memories of past trauma over an extended amount of time, one begins to empathetically share the same memories that the other person does and often times constitutes them as their own memories. I think that it is a definite possibility that Artie is using this mutual, empathetic remembrance of his father’s memories as a means to share something in common with his father again, thus rekindling the estranged relationship he has with him.
On the other hand, the second half of the novel, titled And Here my Troubles Began, gives the reader a better idea of the slow, but steady, opening up of Artie’s feelings of confusion toward he and his father’s relationship. Right off the bat, Artie experiences this awkward moment of confusing and conflicting feelings when his father calls acting as if there is an emergency. On page 13, Artie gets a phone call from his father and starts reacting as if something is wrong. The tone of this section shows that Artie is concerned for his father, but at the same time he feels a bit hesitant to these caring feelings, especially in the third panel when he says, “Yes..I…um…love you too.” This hesitation to express these feelings to his father in a possible crisis show that he yearns for a better relationship with his father, yet he feels conflicted over the fact that they have not expressed these feelings towards one another in quite some time. Furthermore, when Artie finds out that his father is only kidding, he doesn’t know whether to be upset or amused. In the second half of Spiegelman’s Maus, the reader starts getting more insight into the influence and background of the second narrator. I think that the final product of the story, although a narration of the interviews with his father, Spiegelman clearly tells his father’s story with a lot of influence from his own thoughts and feelings. I’m excited to read the rest of Maus II to see where the narrative takes us.
Firstly this is a really good post; well written and great support with analysis of the novel. Although you could be right in the fact that Artie is using the process of interviewing his father as a means to getting closer to him, I feel as though you may be giving Artie too much credit. From my interpretation of the novel, it seems as though Artie is pretty selfish in his acquisition of his father's story. This could be because he is just interested and invested in the story itself, or because he just wants to write a kick ass book. The way he treats his father shows they have a strained relationship, but I don't really feel as though Artie is spending time with his father to ameliorate this tension. The only time Artie seems to be in a good mood is when he is interviewing his father, and he is constantly interrupting his father's complaints about health or his general life events, showing he is really only interested in the story. After his father has a heart attack, literally minutes later Artie is back to interviewing him and letting him go on with his tale. Sorry but that seems a little fucked up to me. Let the guy take a break and maybe just talk to him about how he is doing instead of asking him to describe the gas ovens in Auschwitz. To me, if he was working to better his relationship with his father, he would be more invested in his father's current life, instead of constantly sloughing him off as a problem unless he can get a good hour of recording out of him.
DeleteJustin Huntman
ReplyDeleteMaus 2 is even more depressing that the first book. It story of what survival is like once they are in the concentration camp is even more depressing than them trying to avoid capture. Here I think Spiegelman is really trying to pull on the emotions of the readers. While the topic he is telling is naturally telling is very sad and depressing the way he draws the images makes it even more depressing. Spiegelman is such a talented artist that he could truly make the images give off any emotional appeal he wanted. He could have made the story have a not as depressing appeal. But instead he choice to make it extremely depressing. He it trying to bring the emotional appeal to the story so that the readers can get a true impression of how bad the Holocaust was. It is his way of letting the readers experience the holocaust. This goes to speak of how talented Spiegelman truly is. He I ability to draw and show the emotion of the characters on their faces and with the body expressions is truly amazing. He is very gifted and talented because of his ability to make the reader feel the way the feel. His structure of drawing is truly amazing. The frame work that he uses and the body placement of each charter to know who the focus is, is extremely important. He has mastered the drawing of human emotion and taken it to the next level by putting theses human expressions on the animals. He does this in such an amazing fashion that, when you take the time to look at it is truly astonishing. Spiegelman truly makes you feel that these animals have extreme human like personally because they are in fact human. The presentation of humans by animals is another great feat that is accomplished by Spiegelman. The way he is able to intertwine the physical characters of both humans and animals is astonishing. He makes the characters seem physically exactly like the Animal they are but at the same time shows how they are physically human. This is important to show the symbolism of the animals not to represent humans but to represent the culture that each person is a is a part of . The use of the symbolism truly goes into explain the genius that is Spiegelman’s Art in Maus 2. And this is why the book is so enjoyable and interesting to read.
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Alex Dishman
ReplyDeleteIn Maus 2, I noticed a change in Art throughout the book. He started off the same way he was in the first book, but you could clearly tell that he changed throughout the book. He started appreciating his father and you could see that he truly missed him. I have to admit that I personally got very sad when Vladek died. When I was reading the first book, it made me feel very sympathetic towards Vladek because he was so sick. I think the way Art wrote the book may have contributed to that. I don’t know if Art purposely did that or if it was just how I perceived it, but it seemed as if the novel was drawn out to make you feel for Vladek. Even though a lot of the stuff he did was annoying and rude, I still felt for him more than anybody else. I thought it was weird that Vladek was racist towards black people considering what he went through and it actually made me kind of upset (I think Art should’ve left that out because it made his father look bad). From doing my paper, I realized an important part of the novel that I wouldn’t have noticed without doing it. English was a metaphor used to represent survival. English in particular was used as both a love tool and a survival tool. Vladek was able to speak and understand English, helping him survive in Auschwitz and engage in a relationship with Anja. Another thing that baffled me with these stories was the Vladek’s relationship with Mala. I don’t think that he should’ve married her. He clearly was using her to try and get over Anja, but I don’t think it worked because he clearly never got over her. I thought that the relationship he had with Anja was absolutely adorable. The countless risks he took trying to save her showed how much he truly cared about her. Although Vladek was stingy, cheap and dramatic, you could clearly see that he was a caring man and that the most important people in his life were everyone but himself. He truly cared and loved Art and I think that Art realized that after he passed. All in all, I thought that Maus and Maus II were extremely well written books. They both presented the Holocaust in its true lights and so many emotions were evoked in me from reading them. Even though I have read these books twice, I still wouldn’t mind reading them again because they were so well written.
Alex, I completely agree with what you are saying here in regards to Art changing a lot over the course of the second book. But just as you said, for the most part, I could just not get over all of the ridiculous stories that his father had about his lover Mala that he unsuccessfully tried to use to get over the loss of Anja. No matter what he did though, he could not replace what Anja had given him no matter what. And I have to say, I was upset as well when Art’s father died and I hope you are right about Art understanding how much his father loved him because without that realization I don’t even want to know where he would end up. Both the Maus books were so well written, I had never experienced such an awesome representation of Jewish life that deals with both the terrible holocaust history, and the growth of Jewish-America. The one thing I do disagree with that you said is that you wish that Spiegelman would have left out the racist comments by his father. I feel as though the racist comments belong in there because those mainly came with times and the way society thought and operated then.
DeleteI agree that I did feel bad when Vladek died. There were some aspects of him that I too did not like, but he is human and everyone does not only have good qualitites. I think that it was important that Art show the good and the bad of his father because it is what makes the book real. Art set out to tell his father's story, which is not always pretty or show the good side of those in it. I also thought it was interesting in the way you found English as a metaphor for survival, I honestly did not think of it but you are absolutly right. I think that Vladek is a damged man and that he is still recovering over Anja's death and the events of the past. I think that he does care for Mala, he may not really show it but I think he does. I think you picked up on some really interesting things and I too enjoyed the stories.
DeleteMaus I the reader got a good sense of the background story with Vladek and Anja, Artie’s parents. He goes very in depth of their lives in hiding and pre-Auschwitz time. I think in book one we also get more of a sense of Art and Vladek’s relationship with one another, how they interact and such.
ReplyDeleteMaus 2 got a little more serious with the story of Auschwitz. I think here we discover why Vladek is the way he is in a lot of ways, for example how he is stingy concerning food and money because of how little he had, and how little he learned to survive on. It was very heart wrenching when Vladek died because I think the comic strip style of the writing made us become a part of the story. We were step-by-step, frame-by-frame in Vladek’s memories, and I think that enables the reader to almost place themselves in the story too. Usually in a novel the readers have to use their imaginations to create a picture that the words are making for them, but here we are able to see Artie’s perspective of his father’s story and I think that is why most everyone stated they were sad upon his death.
I found it quite interesting when Vladek, Artie, and Francoise picked up the hitchhiker while on their way home from the market. Vladek of all people took an extreme sense of prejudice towards the black man, talking rudely about him in Polish the entire ride back. Francoise later yells at Vladek telling him he should be the last person to discriminate against other people considering on all he has been through. I’m confused as to why he acts this way? Why after all his suffering, all the hate brought upon him and what he’s been through has he turned bitter in the presence of another race? I think Vladek should’ve been able to be more relatable to this man than any of them but instead is he taking advantage of a race he deems as “below him” just as his way of payback for what he was put through?
Cristina Diaz
ReplyDeleteSpiegelman is back at it and definitely not selling himself short with the creation of Maus II. First off, it's important to note that you can clearly see his evolution as a writer but also as an artist simply by reading both his comic books. More eager that ever before, I must admit, I read the entire book in one sitting. Spiegelman is astute at capturing his reader's attention until the actual end and manipulating it through the intertwining use of imagery and voice. Evidently, Maus I is mostly concerned with the past. Here, Spiegelman spends more time discussing his father's life as a Holocaust survivor. In Maus II we see that he incorporates more of the present. Introducing his wife and sharing current dynamics between his father, himself, his wife and the present world. My favorite instance of this is the car ride to the grocery store where Vladek is determined to return open although unfinished food. He is successful, this showing what his past made of the man he is today. This is precisely what Artie uncovers through his concern and desire about writing and learning about his fathers past. Of course, one wonders how factual the story actually is; and I have been asking myself this most of all, with the character of Mala. She to me allows for the natural development of the story. Actually a lot of Mala's actions directly influence Vladek, therefore the whole storyline in general. At times I feel as if Spiegelman molded the character of Mala to his necessities as an author, in the creation of the story he wanted to share. This is normal in fiction but not when one is trying to recount history which throughout the books one gets the feeling that this is what he is trying to do. Many times, he deters his father from focusing on the present and continuously prompts him (to the point of frustration at times) to proceed speaking of the past, the holocaust instead. All in all, it was entertaining to learn more about his relationship with his father something which had been lingering in the air and up for grabs in Maus I. In Maus II he solidifies this, and definitely shows their son and father bond or at times non-bond. Although if it wasn't for the first book where one learns more about the father and why he is who he is today, I would probably have had Artie's same reaction to the old rat. Instead, I find myself becoming frustrated with Artie for the lack of patience he has (even after he learns about his fathers past) with his father. Nonetheless, Art Spiegelman is truly clever. Masterfully, he puts this world concerned with both past and present , together for his reader.