...As the story of his life in pre-war Poland begins, Vladek states that, “I was at that time, young, and really a nice, handsome boy. I had a lot of girls what I didn’t even know that would run after me” (15). This image fits in well with traditional portrayals of attractive and popular story protagonists. Indeed, Vladek possesses many heroic qualities, including resourcefulness, determination, and intelligence. He is also clearly devoted to Anja, as he visits and cheers her up during her time at the sanatorium, and he later urges her not to give up, insisting, “To die, it’s easy . . . But you have to struggle for life! Until the last moment we must struggle together! I need you!” (124) [See Figure 1]. Such moments certainly reveal Vladek’s admirable traits. However, intermingled with these are the scenes that chip away at Vladek’s character, revealing him to be far from perfect. As the critic Gordon puts it, although Artie “respects Vladek for what Vladek has suffered and survived [he] finds him maddening to deal with” (Gordon 61). And Spiegelman has no issue revealing this to the audience. For instance, Vladek’s extreme frugality is referenced throughout the work, as it constantly alienates those around him, such as Mala, who exclaims that Vladek is “more attached to things than to people!” (95). Artie...
Words: 692 - Pages: 3
...Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale—And Here My Troubles Began The Holocaust was one of the worst epidemics in the entire world. Many people were killed, more importantly the Jewish community, with millions dead. Families were torn and never mended. Among these families were the Spiegleman’s. Art Spiegleman was the son in the family who wrote about his father’s experience in the Holocaust. Maus I and Maus II are his two works of art that share historical information and his personal struggle. Within Maus II, Art talks about the start of his father’s struggles and what will be the beginning of a life changing event. The Holocaust affected victims just as the American Great Depression did its victims. This chapter starts out with Vladek continuously counting his pills, and then Artie and Francoise are staying with him just for a little since Mala left. Vladek keeps everything; he doesn’t want to get rid of anything, even crumbs. In chapter three, page 78 of Maus II, he is trying to give Artie a piece of fruitcake, and Artie refuses, and says he isn’t hungry. Vladek then tells Artie, “So, fine. I can pack the fruitcake in with the cereal for you to take home,” then Artie refuses to let Vladek give him the food because he doesn’t want it. Vladek then says, “I cannot forget it…ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb.” This shows that Vladek is still afraid to get rid of anything, because he is still in fear of the past. They begin talking more about Auschwitz, and how in...
Words: 1585 - Pages: 7
...that it shows the materiality of Spiegelman’s archive; it is about the embodiment of archives. The subject of Maus is the retrieval of memory and ultimately, the creation of memory…. It’s about choices being made, of finding what one can tell, and what one can reveal, and what one can reveal beyond what one knows one is revealing. Those are the things that give real tensile strength to the work—putting the dead into little boxes. – Art Spiegelman (MetaMaus 73) Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is a book about archives. And the book about making Maus, MetaMaus, is both a process of taking stock of the Maus archive and an active process of creating a new archive.1 Maus is about the Holocaust, featuring two intertwined stories: that of Auschwitz survivor Vladek Spiegelman’s struggle in the 1930s and 40s in Poland during WWII, and that of his son Art...
Words: 10659 - Pages: 43
...Contents | Chapter | Page Number | | | | 1. | Literature from the Holocaust: An Introduction | 3 | 2. | Piecing Together History: Stories of Survival | 4 | | Map: Nazi Concentration Camps | 4 | 2.a | Before the war | 4 | 2.b | During the war | 5 | 2.c | After the war | 6 | 3 | Maus: Graphics and Symbolism | 6 | 4 | Comparative Analysis: Understanding the Characters | | 4.a | Sophie and Vladek | 8 | 4.b | Sophie and Anja | 9 | 4.c | Nathan Landau and Holocaust survivors | 10 | 4.d | Stingo and Art as narrators | 10 | 5 | Bibliography | 11 | Literature from the Holocaust: An Introduction “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.” Adolf Hitler Official figures tell that six million Jews, two million Poles, one million Serbs, five million Russians were exterminated during World War II – the actual toll of executions by the Nazi Government, can never be estimated. Holocaust was a period of unspeakable horror and infernal ramifications which were not only felt across Europe but also in places like Laos. When I began this term paper, it was meant to be a study of the literature pertaining to this period of Nazi regime in Poland during World War II. What it turned out to be was a account of implacable and starkly real evil. A subject that has inspired countless movies, novels, real-life accounts, memoirs and poems, the holocaust continues to haunt the imagination of the world even today. It is not history bygone and forgotten...
Words: 4269 - Pages: 18
...consistent—gives it weight and truth • Career destruction – thought that if they refused to kill Jews that it would destroy there business/careers • Holocaust: The ignored Reality- Timothy Snyder • What is wrong with making (A) the iconic Holocaust experience? o It was the western most camp o Eastern killings are much unknown o Should view as one mass murder o Most Jews were polish Jews that were killed o Jews killed at (A) were not representative victims • Jews at (A) came mostly from western Europe • More educated/less religious than Polish Jews o (A) was not as bad other camps • Gets attention because there are a lot of survivors • Educated prisoners were able to write and share their story • Western released prisoners were able to spread their stories easier than eastern survivors who were under Soviet rule o 50% of the victims did not die by gas, they died by bullet • Focusing on camps leaves out a large portion of the killings most importantly the mass shootings • Shame- Primo Levi o What (widely-held) ideas about Holocaust survival is Primo Levi trying to dispel? • The people were experienced liberation as a joyous moment- the memories of survivors become colored by the Hollywood scripts. The...
Words: 5545 - Pages: 23
