- Why was this book controversial? Which themes or ideas were challenging to society?
This book was challencged because of the Nazis. The story of this book is litterally how a man and his wife survive the Nazi period in history. This is an extremely controvertial topic, since many people nowadays cannot stand the sight of the Nazi flag alone, let alone a graphic novel about what a Jew suffered during that period of time. On the other hand, many people also aknowledge that if we never talk about it, if we let the past go, we might repeat the same mistakes. In that case it is important to teach people about the Nazis, even though they were a very dark part of our past.
Maus talks about the Nazis and a man's survival during that time in a very shallow, easy to understand, way. It turns something dark and gloomy into basically a war cats against mice. It makes it a good read and it disguises most of the depression and instead focuses more on humor. Despite all that, though, many cultures and coungries still disqpprove of this book because they are so insulted by the Nazis, maybe because they are Jews even, that they don't even want to talk about it. Instead they choose to ignore it. Unfortunately, they could be building onto the repetition of history
I agree and disagree with you. What you said about Maus being more of a book of humor than describing the depressing past of WWII I disagree with that part. I think that even though Maus has some humor in it, I think it is still a very serious book. A lot of people might think that since the book is a graphic novel the features mice that it is immature and does not describe the dark past about WWII. But that is the exact opposite of what the book is. The book is about how Vladek survived being a Jew in WWII, and in the book he has to create many hideouts for his family to stay. He had to chew on wood because they did not have food. He lost his child and most of his family. We left off of him and Anja walking alone to find hope. Because for me I would have lost hope if I had to survive like that. So for me the only part that I found funny was when Art was trying to get the story from his dad and his dads relationship with Mala. Like you said about people banning the book, I think for me that putting Natzis as cats is offeseive for many people. Because a lot of peoples relatives were in WWII and may have suffered a lot and would not like to see Natzis as cats and Jews as mice, just because cats are more powerful than mice are and that offends some people. So Art Spiegelman took a big risk by publishing this book. Why do you think this book was banned?
ReplyDeleteThis book is controversial to you because one side of the people we know tend to look back and see peoples mistakes and sufferings. And on the other there are people who try to forget. Where are you? do you want to forget or learn.
ReplyDeleteand I agree with you. It's pretty challenging handling all the sides and different emotions to even have the courage to publish the book.
Julianna, I agree with you to start with. In your first paragraph, I liked how you pointed out that the Nazis history was a very dark time and how you said that even though this can be a very uncomfortable topic for some, t's still important to learn about it. I also liked how, on your second paragraph, you mentioned that the author wrote a book upon a harsh and challenging topic; however, he managed to make it humorous. I don't really agree that this book is very humorous, I just think that it's less difficult to deal with the main topic. The comic (graphic nove) helps us by taking a lot of the weight of the topic out, and thus making the reading a little less intense to follow along. I'm not saying that the book is not intense, I'm just pointing out that it's more fun and interesting to read. The way that the author wrote it, makes the reader grab hold of the whole story, only in a different way of saying, or writing; a different perspective. I liked to hear your ideas and opinions. Thank you for leading my thinking forward. :)
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