Art Spiegelman
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?
First of all, the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman is based on a true story. Art's father Vladek, was actually a Holocaust survivor. In a way, the book Maus is about the book Maus. This is because in the novel, Art asks his father to tell him about his Holocaust experience so he can write a book, and in real life, Art Spiegelman wrote Maus based off of what his father told him about the Holocaust (he started interviewing his father in 1987.) So not only did the author's cultural background influence the novel, but it was the story for it, and the reason it was written. Also, it does influence the novel because Art had a good source, his father, a Holocaust survivor. If his father were not a survivor, the book would be different and probably have different information and bias.
Secondly, not much is revealed to me about Art Spiegelman's world view in this novel, but maybe of his view of the Holocaust; mainly that he knew what it was really like because of his father.
source --- I chose this image because in order to write Maus, Art Spiegelman had to put together his and his father's knowledge.
source --- A picture of Vladek Spiegelman
Great post Alicia! I like your post but I do not get about "the book Maus is about the book Maus." Is this a typo or if not, what is this about? It does make sense about Art asking his father to help him write the story Maus and he literally wrote it. But can you give more information Maus is about Maus? For your second paragraph, you can add more information if you have researched more about Art Spiegelman. But otherwise, great post!
ReplyDeleteAlicia,
ReplyDeleteI truly loved your post because it gives people many reasons to read Maus. As a matter of fact, it interested me when you said how this novel was influenced by this source, which would be Artie's father, Vladek. Throughout the reading of this book, I noticed how important Vladek's story was to the world. Therefore, it brought me to wonder something really important. Why is this particular story so interesting, apart from knowing Vladek is a Holocaust survivor? There were about a thousand of Jews, which survived, and enough Holocaust survivors to interview; yet, how did this source get so many thoughts and discussions. In my opinion, I would say because of its level of credibility. In fact, sometimes I couldn't get my mind to imagine all of the horrible things that were happening at the time. All of these stories contained gruesome experiences, but this specific story included the story of how this family turned into something depressed and apart. How the Nazi’s were tearing every noticeable limb in each of their human bodies. As a result, in made my think how intriguing this certain story was and why people chose to read more about it.