Maus II: Final Blog

For the most part, I'd say the Maus series had a pretty good ending considering the events that took place. It's a miracle that Anja survived the different concentration camps and it's an even bigger miracle that Vladek and her were able to reconnect with each other after the war. So many others were not so lucky when it came to finding their loved ones. This brings me to the photos that Vladek showed Art of his extended family members. Each person had their own story that was equally touching and heartbreaking at the same time. It just helps to reiterate how hard everyone's lives were during this trying time in history. After reading about the reunion of Vladek and Anja, it made me think more about her suicide and it depressed me to know that after everything she had been through, and being with the one she loved was not enough to keep her going within her own life. I can't imagine the pain she was feeling to think that her only escape was to take her own life. The last illustration in the novel is  Vladek's tombstone and it just brings the story full circle regarding his health. He had been so close to death so many times before and for him to die after finally telling the end of his story seems a bit symbolic to me. Overall, reading these novels has opened up a new outlook for me regarding the Holocaust. I finally realize the power of genre.

Maus II: Chapters 1, 2 & 3

Let me just start off this blog post with saying how intense Maus II is compared to Maus I. The scenes depicted from the concentration camps have gotten much more gruesome and harder to read. In a previous post I talked about how hard it was to get through some portions of the first novel, but that is no comparison to this novel. Something, however, in this book that I've noticed myself having an issue with is which panel to read first. I didn't seem to have this problem while reading Maus I, so it is odd to me that it is becoming a challenge.

Chapter one starts out with Art getting the phone call from his father which sets the entire tone for the chapter. It makes the reader suspenseful and worried as to what has happened. It is also no surprise that in this chapter, Mala has left Vladek. We all saw that one coming. It was interesting to learn about the meaning that the numbers Vladek had tattooed on him. If I were in his position, I would be given a great deal of hope after hearing all the good fortune that comes out of these numbers.

Chapter two is where things start to get messy. You get a look into how sad Art is and how lonely he feels even though his first book is doing so well. It is a prime example of just how money cannot buy you happiness. You also find out in this chapter that Vladek has died. At first, I didn't know how the book would go on, but I soon realized that Art had conducted these interviews long before his father died. As the chapter goes on, Vladek relays the stories of the gas chambers and the mass graves that he was told about from a guy who worked with him. This was interesting, yet so hard to read. When he says, "prisoners what worked there poured gasoline over the live ones and the dead ones. and the fat from the burning bodies they scooped and poured again so everyone could burn better"(page 72) I found myself repulsed by the imagery it created. The words don't even need illustrations to go along with them, the words produce enough horror.

In chapter three, things somewhat get toned down because there is a lot of dialogue between Vladek, Art and Francoise regarding the stay that they are having with Vladek. Again, the recurring motif of recycling everything is shown again by the cereal being almost empty and Vladek insisting he return it. The most interesting thing I gathered from this chapter was on the ride home from the store when Franciose picks up the black hitchhiker and Art's father freaks out. He becomes very racist and says demeaning things regarding the man. I'm confused as to how he could say such things after going through everything from World War II. You would think that he would be the most understanding and empathetic human-being on the planet. This shocked me to say the least and I'm wondering if it will come up again in the upcoming chapters.

Maus I: Chapters 5 & 6

As my readings in Maus I: My Father Bleeds History came to a close, I had more of a desire to begin reading the second book. Before I could do that, however, I needed to address certain aspects of the last two chapters that had me puzzled and even outraged. To keep with my previous organization, I'm going to set this blog post up just as my last one; by chapters.

Chapter 5, titled Mouse Holes, holds a section within it that is a previous comic strip done by Art many years ago about his mother's suicide. I found this to be very interesting because it sheds some light onto the Spiegelman family as a whole. It also gives the reader some insight into the mental turmoil that still follows these Holocaust survivors around even once they are out of the camps. Another thing I came across while reading this chapter was on page 125 when Art and his father go into the bank so that Vladek can make a key to his safety deposit box for his son. The teller behind the desk looks like he could be a dog instead of a pig which is what everyone who wasn't a jew or a nazi is portrayed as throughout the book. I could be wrong but it caught my attention so I figured it was worth sharing. Below I've attached a picture of the strip that I am referring to. This leads me to the end of the chapter where the reader finds out how much of a gold digger Mala truly is. It is hard to believe Vladek when he complains about her frivolous spending because of his reputation as a frugal person. He may be exaggerating but that was something I just had to wait until the next chapter to find out.

In chapter 6, Mouse Trap, Spiegelman gives the reader a visual of how bad the conditions were for those who were constantly in hiding. Being in a cellar with no light, no food, and no direct path to fresh air took a toll on those experiencing it. I tried to imagine being placed in the same situation, and wondering if I would have the strength to endure those types of hardships and I don't think I would be able to. In fact, I know that the first time a rat brushed up next to me, I would scream and give myself away immediately. The bravery and courage that the jewish people had to put forth during WWII is really what struck me the most in this chapter. I have a new found respect for those men, women, and children who were lucky enough to be hidden by their neighbors in hopes of evading the concentration camps. In terms of the plot, when Vladek tells Art that he has burned the journals that his mother kept during their time in hiding, I had to pause and reread to make sure I didn't misunderstand something. I can see why Vladek did that, but on the other hand, I was deeply upset by the thought of never knowing what she was truly feeling during those trying times. 

Maus I: Chapters 3 & 4

Continuing my readings into the Maus I novel, I've come up with a few questions about how it will progress and, of course, how it will end. To do this blog post justice, I've decided to split it into the chapters so that those who are reading it can easily follow along.

In chapter 3, Vladek, Art's father, tells the story of his father making sure he, and his siblings, are not in proper physical shape to be drafted into the war. I found this rather intriguing because it just goes to show what great lengths the people of this time were willing to go to in order to keep their families and loved ones safe. Vladek expresses this story in a way of disgust because he didn't like being starved like that but, from what I can infer, he realizes what he meant to his father in order for him to starve his son. This correlates with Vladek being drafted into the army in 1939 and retelling his story of being in the trenches and killing another soldier. This scene gives the reader insight to the mental damage that Art's father endured and it also foreshadows worse events to come. In this chapter, the reader gets a sense of how badly people are being treated in the "work camps" and how cruel the Nazi army is being to all Jews.

Chapter 4 is titled, The Noose Tightens, which can only lead a reader to hypothesize about the events that are about to take place. Nothing good is going to come from a chapter that has the word "noose" in it's title. I found this chapter to be very depressing and almost hard to get through just because I knew it was going to end in some family member being taken away. In this case, it was the grandparents. The scene where the Gestapo come to round them up was very morbid for me because I couldn't imagine someone taking my grandparents from me, or even on the other hand, being the grandparents and having to leave my family for the fear of them taking the rest of my family as well.

From reading these two chapters, I already have a sense of how the rest of book I and book II are going to be. I've read a lot about the Holocaust throughout high school but reading about it in this type of genre is more interesting to me than I previously thought it would be. Another thing I find interesting about the novel is the characters portrayal as animals. The jews are mice, the Nazis are cats, and everyone else is a pig. Its pretty obvious why the jews are mice and the Nazis are cats but I think the reason that everyone else is a pig is because most people knew what was happening to these families and didn't do anything to try to help them, so the author portrays them as swine. Just a hypothesis!

Dawidowicz Reading & Maus I parts 1-2

After all of the work we've been doing in class regarding genres, the Dawidowicz reading intently linked the Holocaust to the information from class. The author states that there are two kinds of documents related to the Holocaust; official records, and private papers. She goes into sub genres for each type with examples such as diaries or letters for private papers, and government archives, and diplomatic reports for the official records. I connected this with our lesson from Tuesday, August 27 where we got into our writing groups and considered the master list of genres and answered questions such as, "what purposes do the different kinds of writing serve?". I was surprised to read about the sheer amount of records that came from the Holocaust and how it surpassed, in quantity and comprehensiveness, the records of any other historical era. The Oneg Shabbat is an excellent example of how genres can play a role in recording history or even the collective effort of an oppressed race. I was impressed at how many people took the initiative and kept diaries of their own accounts of the horrifying actions taken against them in the ghettos and also how these documents were all hidden in hopes of one day being recovered and remembered after the war ended. A connection I found in the Dawidowicz reading and the first two parts of the Maus graphic novel were the key words from the official records kept by the Germans and the key words that Spiegelman chooses to insert into his comic strips. Both of these short, to the point genres are different in their respective ways, and yet all so similar in other ways. The Germans used the key term "final solution" to describe the extermination of the jews in a way that the naked eye wouldn't be able to decipher if glancing over a document, but if the right person were to be reading the same document, they would know what the Germans meant and be on the same page as those who wrote it. Art Spiegelman has to choose his words very wisely in his graphic novel due to the lack of space that he is allotted, and he must get the correct themes across to the reader in order for them to fully understand the plot of the story. Genre used to be a word that I didn't think much about until this class began and now I can't seem to get away from it. Genre is everywhere, in everything I do, and everything I read and write. Reading the Dawidowicz excerpt alongside the first two parts of Maus I, I was able to make connections that I previously wouldn't have been able to make regarding the types of genre they spoke about.