Another metaphor the author used was the different types of animals how they lived. Each animal had a class. The mice were at the bottom the pigs were in the middle and the cats were at the top. The mice were like peasants, and the cats were like knights.
2. What is the cultural and educational background of the author and how did this background influence the book? In what ways do the events in the books reveal evidence of the author’s world view?
In the story Maus by Art Spiegelman the author demostrates his farthers life story abou twhen he was in WW2(World War 2). In Maus the shows and describes the life of a witness in WW2(World War 2.)
He began cartooning in 1960, and after a while he wanted to write a story about WW2(World War 2) and he went to his father and asked him about his life. This background influence the book by getting a real life story. In other other words the book Maus is based on a witness that was acuatully there at the time and what he experienced and went through.
Owain,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the metaphors you wrote and I wanted to add a comment to the second one. Since the mice are being chased by the cats and there are dogs and pigs, I thin the dogs (Americans) also chase somebody: the cats. We have seen plenty cartoons like Tom & Jerry where a mouse is being chased but there is also several ones that include a cat being chased by a dog. (And I have seen it personally with my dog, he loves to run after cats). Anyway the fact that at last the Americans won the war means that they stronger than the germans therefor they are represented as dogs. While the pigs were only a fill-in.
I found your comment really interesting to analyze, though I would like to hear more metaphores about it. For example in page 136 Vladek says: “Anja was easily to be recognized“ and this means that they were wearing “costumes“ of pigs. The author paints Anja in this scene with a mouse tail while Vladek has none.
Good Job!
I really thought that the book represented well the animals on the book. On the major point the Mice which were the Jews, the Cats who were the Nazis. I know why he chose the Mice and the Cats, but I do not know why he chose the pigs. My idea why he chose the pigs, it was because that pigs they don't interfere between cats and mice, it is like they have nothing to do one with the other, this means that the pigs are like something else, that does not disturb the rivalry between the cats and mice.
ReplyDeleteOwain,
ReplyDeleteLooking over your post I agree with the two metaphors you pointed out. Cats do chase mice. But in reality, not all cats chase mice. According to this paper http://remember.org/imagine/henchman.html the german soldiers were not responsible for the Holocaust. They carried out higher orders given by hitler. The real cat should be hitler. The paper also shows hitlers speeches where he ordered soldiers to follow his orders. This could suggest that the german soldiers were only following orderes blindly and should not be blamed for being the "Cats" of the book it should be that they are being controlled by a cat.