Sunday, October 26, 2014

Maus Week 3# Question Commander

Question 1#
Why did Art Spiegelman show us the comic strip "Prisoner on the Hell Planet"?

I think the reason he showed us this very personal and sad comic story because, first of all, it was in the story and the characters were talking about it, so it made the story easier to understand if we could read the comic with our very own eyes. The second reason why I think he showed us this comic was the fact that it gave so much background information on the present. As we already know, Maus is a story told in flash backs and sometimes we can see Artie and Vladlek talking about the present, so because we got to see the comic strip we could know what happened to Anja and what was her last appearance. in the book.


Question 2#
Why does Art Spiegelman even show us the present when he can show the story of the past and the past only?

I think that the author chose to show us the present because the present has its very ow story which is not directly related to Vladlek's experience in the war. I also support the way he chose to make the story because it makes the book seem much more human and real (despite the mice mice people).  I think that the author did a very good story on the past and the present and the formatting on the book is great. I personally think that the structure is good but I would like to know your opinion as well.

3 comments:

  1. For the first question I think that the author put this comic strip in the book so that we would understand better the background of the actual characters, because or else it would be too confusing for the story to not put that part in. If I had read the story without the comic strip I would not be able to understand the story. For the second question he probably did the present and suture thing, it is because of his actual story that he did, for example like it was his actual story, he wanted to represent it and how his father actually went to the war.

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  2. Heitor,

    I agree with all of your ideas but something that I would add is the relation between the book and the reader. Speigelman wanted to create a comic book that was more powerful than the average book. Most people know about the Holocaust and what happened during World War 2, some people can't even talk about what happened. Speigelman in my opinion was trying to connect with the reader using animals in the book like mice and pigs to show the full horror of the Holocaust. If the reader were to read this book as a human they would not experience the full dramatic effect because they have experienced their limit of pain. However from the perspective of a mouse the readers imagination can flow any really understand how impacting the Holocaust was.

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  3. Heitor, for your first question, I agreed with you. The characters where talking about it so it was vey reasonable to show the strip to the audience. There was only one thing that I didn't really understand, that strip. I didn't understand the meaning of it, the message behind that image and title. I would like to know if you understood it and if you would be able to explain it to me.
    Well, from your second question, I believe that the author wrote in the present because it was a narrative from one mouse to the other. Although it was a story about the past, he was telling it in the present, and I think that it couldn’t have been another way because, as I mentioned before, it was a narrative. So, in the end I agree with you. Great post!

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