Maus comic (6 points)

 

I read the comic book called Maus. It is the events of the nazi party in world war two told with cats and mice. I find this way of telling the story to be brilliant, showing the nazi party's predatory nature towards the Jewish community and many other minorities similar to the stereotype of cats hunting mice. The story starts with the main character sad that his friends skated away without him and when his skates broke and complaining to his father about it. We got a good idea of the personality of this father when he said to his son, "be locked together in a room with no food or water, and for a week, then you could see what it is, friends"'. He is a lot more rough and condescending based on the experiences he has been through during the war. Later on in life, He came back to see his father and remarried wife, who had also lived through the war.  He asked his father about the war and what was like to live in Poland. The story goes back and forth between the son's question and the father's story. He talked about how he met his mother in Czechoslovakia. I found it interesting that the father did not want him to write about Lucia because it had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and he is right. They are personal stories, and it is respectful to stay on task of the actual Holocaust. However, the son's arguments say that it makes it feel more human and real. I agree with this; to know the characters before in their everyday life makes you feel for them in their journey further in the harsh war. I felt this way as well when reading, "I saw it."  Making them mice rather than humans with this strait forward dialogue makes the story more in testing and appealing. It's less like a history lesson and more of a character-driven story. You can relate to the characters more, not knowing anything else about them other than the events they have been through. This helps to focus on the events more.

As they lived in Poland, the nazis started to invade the area with its racist and anti-Semitism, so they left Poland as soon as possible. We later find that he had a brother that was born and did not survive the war.  His Grandfather didn't want him to go into the army, so he and his brother starved themselves but eventually, he had to be drafted and was soon kidnapped. During the parts and the prison camps were hard for me to read because I knew that these were real events that people went through, and making them cats or mice didn't make it any less upsetting that the events happened. After the gatting fee of the first situation, it got harder and harder as the war continued. I wasn't just imprisonment anymore. It was straight murder if they went outside. It is quite traumatic seeing people lynched and hung from the streets.