Historical Context Juho

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 is written by the author, Art Spiegelman. He is an author and this story is mostly based about his father, Vladek Spiegelman. Artie in this story first asks his dad to help him write his story by giving information about what happened his lifetime during the Holocaust. Then Vladek talks about what happened to him during the Holocaust and Artie writes it down which made Maus based on Vladek. So not only did the author's cultural background influence the novel, but it was the story for it, and it also has the reason why it was written. Also, it does influence the novel because Art had a good source, his father, a Holocaust survivor. If his father was not a Holocaust survivor, he might have not written this story in the way he'd written by now, also it would have probably contained bias of an kind.

Secondly, not much of the author's world view isn't known since this story was based by Vladek, the author's father. Mostly the author's father's ideas were revealed but not most of it due to that it was a biography wrote in another way. So this is most likely to be an interview about his father making it almost nothing to show the author's world of view. 

https://trcs.wikispaces.com/Vladek

I chose this picture because this is a picture of Vladek Spiegelman, the reason why this book has no bias containing. Also the book is almost all based on this man so I chose this as an important picture to pick.

Alicia Week 5 Historical Context

Maus

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

2. How does the protagonist change from the beginning to the end of the novel?  What does this character learn about himself (or herself) and about how the world works?

You Are The Only Thing That Changes

Maus is a graphic novel in which depicts what a Holocaust survivor went through during the second world war. The protagonist Vladek is a Holocaust survivor he retells his story to his son. And that is how the author tells the story. There is no particular antagonist in this novel although the Nazi party maybe considered one.

Vladek who is a holocaust survivor changed massively during the novel. Especially his attitude towards his wife. During the Holocaust, Vladek's wife was Anja. I believe that he truly loved him because he was always nice to her and I could really feel his love towards her from the things that he did for her. But after he remarried with Mala, he became really aggressive towards her. He accused her of being a gold digger etc etc. And there are many scenes in the book in which Mala is crying because of the hostility of Vladek. In conclusion, Vladek has changed his perspective towards women after Anja died in the concentration camps.
 

Literary Analysis blogpost #4 Juho

1. 
   
    Maus is a racist book?

   
   
   
   This book, Maus, is a lot like to all books many people have read in the past 7 months. The theme is a lot to do with the holocaust which is otherwise communism or facism specifically. The book is about Artie, the writer, writing and hearing a story about his father, Vladek who is a holocaust survivor. Vladek , the protagonist had a wife named Anja who survived during  WWII but died 4 years later from depression. Then after he married another wife named Mala, who also a holocaust survivor. Now that the book has ended readers can see the themes of the book. There are many themes to this book as the reader can see.
   
   

                                                                                
    maus characters
   One theme from the book as readers can see was about race and what the Nazis thought of the jews, homo-sexuals, gypsies, and others. Maus plays on the Nazi’s racist idea that Jews are less than human, “vermin,” by rendering the Jewish characters into mice. Germans, on the other hand, are represented as cats, Americans as dogs, and Poles as pigs. Maus doesn’t use these animal figures to present a simplistic moral tableau where all the Germans are evil and all the Jews are good. Instead, the novel uses these animal figures to show how race is not reducible to one characteristic or another (Maus). There are good mice and bad mice, good pigs and bad pigs, good cats and evil cats, and so forth. In fact, just as the Jews “passed” as Poles or Germans as a way to survive, the novel plays with its own animal allegory, presenting human beings wearing mouse masks or mice wearing pig masks. The novel also considers how racial stereotypes still operate in society today, bringing up the troubling question of whether we as a society have learned anything from the experience of the Holocaust. 
   
   Another theme is about the holocaust which is warfare. Maus presents World War II largely from the perspective of Jewish survivors who were imprisoned in the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau (Spiegelman). From survivor testimony, Maus recreates concentration camp life – from the brutal labor conditions to the infamous gas chambers, where it is estimated that almost a million prisoners died in Auschwitz alone (Maus). Maus also tracks the psychological effect of camp life on the individuals involved. Rather than presenting either the guards as uniformly evil or the prisoners as uniformly good, we get a full range of human behavior – cowardice and sadism, certainly, but also heroism and moral strength.

Literary Analysis - Ryoung Kim

Persepolis

By Marjane Satrapi

Literary Analysis 

Page 3 - 71

Ryoung Kim

Source

1. What theme or themes does the author explore in the novel?  Which passages in the text connect to the theme?

While reading the book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi till page 61, I realised that there were several interesting themes explored in the book. Among the many themes, I found "class difference" as the most interesting and one of the focused themes in the book. Citizens who are in a low social class are mistreated by the high class people because of their lack of wealth. Due to this, many demonstrations occur in the novel by the lower class people. For example, on page 37, the main character joins the protests for her maid without knowing it was Black Friday. The main character Marjane is described as a very curious and a smart child in the book and because of this, she doesn't understand why love between different social class people is impossible. On page 37, the scene strongly connects to the theme, "social class." It strongly shows Marjane's thoughts and opinions about social classes, "But is it her fault that she was born where she was born??? Dad, are you for or against social classes? When I went back to her room she was crying. We were not in the same social class, but at least we were in the same bed." In one's opinion, it was the golden line of the chapter. Not even being able to love whom one desires because of social class was a very sad reality of that time. Also, on page 23, Marjane's grandfather claims, "It disgusts me that people are condemned to a bleak future by their social class." Through this quote, it shows that Marjane's grandfather is truly disappointed by the fact that poor and less educated people cannot have the same rights as the people who are wealthy and educated. Because of this, in Iran, lower class citizens protested so the government would listen to their voice. 

Formative Blog Post #4 -- Julia Jacob

LITERARY ANALYSIS QUESTION:  
 

• Is the book’s structure chronological or does it move back and forth between past and present? Does the author use a single (first or third person) viewpoint or shifting points of view?  Why might the author have chosen to tell the story this way and how does it influence the reader’s understanding?

Maus, A Survivor's Tale

The book Maus does not have a chronological structure but it transfers back between past and present. I believe the reason the author decided to do this was to demonstrate the reaction Artie had to his Father's story. There were so many horrifying things that his father shares that the reader also needs a time to take all the information in. This structure that Art Spiegelman chose for his book was very influential because the reader would reflect on how peaceful our world is today and actually compare the time periods, even thank God for not having passed through all that. 

Since this survivor's tale travels from present to future, vice-versa, and it is a cartoon, the book is mostly told by first person when it comes to the Holocaust stories (by Vladek) but when it goes back to the present day life there is a different person narrating (Artie). On page 26 we can see the narration made by Artie: "For the next few months I went back to visit my father quite regularly, to hear his story." The difference between the two different types of narration is that Artie's is not inside the comic strips like Vladek's. Vladek's has to do with the sequence to the story, like wise: "And when I went upstairs ..." - 27

These two types of first person narrations are very different because the Holocaust experience is being told based on the memory of the survivor, therefore he is telling the story to his son. As for the present day part of the book, it is not a memory, it is happening currently and it has nothing in context to the story being told about the World War I & II.

Illustrious Artist - Maus

Maus
By Art Spiegelman 
Page 129 - 159
Illustrious Artist 
Ryoung Kim

For this week's role, I chose to do the illustrious artist and this drawing represents Vladek's sickness. The mouse on the drawing is Vladek and the symbol next to Vladek is the symbol for sickness. I chose to draw this because I found this scene as the most interesting scene while reading. The scene was the most interesting scene to me because its descriptions helped me image the scene and was described as if Vladek was seriously ill. Also, the scene was very surprising for me because Vladek is described as a very brave, strong and a risk taking character in the book even though he had a several heart attacks. For example, on page 138, he gave his identity away to a man he spoke to in Hebrew while he was trying to hide the fact that he was Jewish so he wouldn't get killed by the Nazis and the Gestapo (Trcs). Also, Vladek has sent away the one whom he had loved to heaven and had to stand the pain of his mother's suicide. He had survived war, depression and sickness. For these reasons, Vladek's illness was the most surprising and interesting scene to me.

Line Illuminator : Week #3

"...I don't know how I can stand it! " Mala  

Vladeck walks in

" So... Hi, kids"

" I didn't know you are upstairs here. I as watering the downstairs garden. "

" Mala and I were just talking about my book...  I've already started to sketch out some parts. I'll show you!"

Before Vladek, Artie's father walks in to his house, Mala and Artie are talking about Vladek. They were complaining about him and how he reacts to most of his life to Mala. But when Vladek goes in they stop talking about him. If it were normal people they would still talk so that the person will change their attitude, but seeing that they stopped continuing, I think that Vladek is like the leader of the group and they are the minions that follow them while he is there, but then doesn't like him and complains about him when he isn't seen. They act more like a family when Vladek is there and forgets about the tension and the reason they were mad at him because of the reason he is there. This is also shown in many families where they have a parent divorced but then married again.

Couple about to be divorced

But for this reason that Mala and Vladek don't go along is Vladek had Anja but she died, well suicided because she felt depressed after the war. So she died and after Artie grew, Vladek thought Mala would be another wife instead for Anja but it wasn't right so you can see them fighting over for who is a worse person.

Maus, Week 2.

Having read 2 books and 2 parts of Maus, I can see many connections from Maus to One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, World War I, and many other books. Maus is a book based on the history of the holocaust, and the life of a Jew during World War II. Maus has to do a lot with equality because Jews weren’t equal to the Aryans during the World War II in the lands German conquered. The Nazi group especially treated Jews, Gypsies, and a whole lot of people who weren’t Aryan as their experiments or the main reason for Germany’s Treaty that they had to pay. But Jews, especially were most killed in the camps of the Nazis. Bringing the reason that Jews in Germany were wealthy while the whole German people weren’t Hitler came up with the idea to make a gigantic army to break the Treaty and to kill the Jews. It was like killing 2 birds with one stone.

                   killing 2 birds with one stone

Connecting to One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the concentration camps were both harsh. They treated the prisoners as nothing but people who will help the country become better. The differences were that One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, had a gulag camp for the Russians or prisoners in Russia who had their reason. But the Holocaust was a camp for Jews who didn’t have a reason to be stuck their. Another difference is that the Holocaust killed people on purpose but in One day, the campers were killed by hard work but not on purpose. But the campers for one reason had to work non-stop for hours and hours, day by day, month by month. Germany wanted the campers to help Germany not their own home country. But the Soviet Union government wanted the campers to help Soviet Union and the people.

holocaust jews

Also connecting to World War I and Maus, World War II started from World War I and Hitler. That is not exaggerated, since World War I made a Treaty ( Treaty of Versailles) which made Germany pay loads of money and land to USA, United Kingdom (more like England), and France. But Hitler during that time found out that Jews were still wealthy while the whole country and even USA was suffering from the Great Depression. Hitler lied, more or less exaggerated about Jews and why they had to suffer from the Great Depression, and the Treaty of Versailles. So Hitler secretly made the Nazi army and made the army greater and greater everyday. Then he also made concentration camps known as the Holocaust. Which then started the war.

Alicia Maus Week 2 Question Commander

1.  Art Spiegelman depicts his characters as animals. How do you think this affects the story (and how would readers interpret the story differently if the characters were humans?)
          I think this symbolism works well in the story, and if he had chosen to make the characters human, it wouldn't have the same effect. We know the Nazis were bad, but by making them cats and the Jews mice, it sort of reminds us that they are the enemy. Also, it helps the reader to identify who is who in the story. If the characters were all human, we wouldn't be reminded that the Nazis were constantly going after the Jews like cats and mice, and it also might be more difficult to identify the different characters.  

link

2. Why is Vladek so concerned with money (ex: he insisted on fixing the roof himself instead of hiring someone)  How does this derive from his experience in the Holocaust?
          In my opinion, it derives from his experience from the Holocaust because Anja's family was very wealthy (so Vladek was rich as well) and even with all their money, the family was affected by the Holocaust. Their situation would have been even worse without all the money; Vladek probably realized the importance of money that way, and I think that's why he tries to save money. It may also be because he doesn't work anymore, and he needs to save money.


3. How would the story be different if we were reading what Art wrote about his fathers experience, instead of seeing him tell Art the story?
          It would probably be more difficult to tell what kind of person Vladek was, and what his thoughts were, since he barely talks about his opinions during the Holocaust, and we only see him expressing them to Art. Also, it would  be less interesting because the way the novel is written (or drawn) let's us see more aspects of Vladek's life, and also some things about Art. If we were just reading a book about what Art wrote, we wouldn't know things like Vladek's relationships with Mala and Art, or how he behaves now (saves money, hoarder, etc.) 

link

Another question I have, that I don't know how to answer is: why do you think Vladek married Mala?

Ivanna Hidalgo - Illustrious Artist

Ivanna Hidalgo
Week #2 - Pages 73 - 127
Job - Illustrious Artist
Maus by Art Spiegelman

           To start of with, I chose to draw this because it somehow represented the relationship between Valdek and Mala, Valdek's current wife. In my opinion, this represents the couple's relationship because the comic-like drawing explains how Mala is replacing Anja when she committed suicide. Therefore, it explains how Valdek just physically replaced Anja for someone who can be a wife to him. Anyways, there was a certain scene that took place during the reading on page 93, which inspired me to draw this. I thought that the negativity in the relationship was too big to not write about it. In fact, I really got the mouthful of the hate and desperation there was in between this relationship. Another reason why I chose this scene is because it symbolized the errors one can make when something unfortunate happens. In other words, many times people think doing something is the right thing, when in the end; it all turns out to be a kind of tragedy. For example, Valdek chose Mala as his wife after Anja died. However, my thinking is that he thought that by getting another body to be his wife, everything would be good and back to normal. On the other hands, Mala wasn't a woman he appreciated, now relating to the actual drawing. 
          In the beginning, the child in the drawing finds the same doll he had broken and bought it, yet he stayed unhappy because it wasn't the doll he first had. Additionally, this drawing relates to Valdek and Mala because it tells how Valdek unconsciously chose Mala without realizing she wasn't the one. To conclude with, making the wrong decision is why they fight most of the times or why they don't really "click" as a true and happy marriage.

Connection Captain -- Maus #2

      Having read the two first parts of the book Maus by Art Spiegelman, I can very well connect this book to several others we have read in seventh grade and last semester. Some of these books are The Giver, Anthem, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Uglies and The City of Ember. Maus being based on a historical event being the Holocaust and World war I/II it has to do a lot with equality and a completely different world. For the Nazis Group this completely different world meant no Jews, no disabled people and no Gypsies. It meant that everyone had to be a cert way, and that way was having blue eyes and blond hair.
      Isn't it ironic how Hitler wanted the people to have these characteristics even though he didn't have them?  I think so two.
      For all the other books their idea of perfect world meant the creation of no difference between the people and almost no emotions. But the difference between all the books and Maus is that they are all set in the future with just a scenario. As for Maus, it happened, and people had to suffer for something that lead to despair and failure. People gave so much to receive such a massive destruction.

Risk taking researcher Jason

As our book Maus talks mostly about surviving the holocaust I thought about researching more deeply about that topic. The Holocaust  (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt")was a genocide of approximately 6 million jews committed by the Nazi party. The Holocaust happened during the 1941 until 1945. Jews were targeted and murdered methodically.  In total, approximately 11 million people were killed, including approximately one million Jewish children.Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed. Not only the Jews were targeted by Nazis As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Germans and their collaborators persecuted and murdered millions of other people. Between two and three million Soviet prisoners of war were murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. The Germans targeted the non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet civilians for forced labor in Germany or in occupied Poland, where these individuals worked and often died under deplorable conditions. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, German authorities persecuted homosexuals and others whose behavior did not match prescribed social norms. German police officials targeted thousands of political opponents (including Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists) and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah's Witnesses). Many of these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment.

Week #1, Question Commander

Ryoung Kim

Maus 

By Art Spiegelman

February 8, 2015

Week 1

Page 5-71

How would Maus change if the author used human figures instead of animals?

In my opinion, I think that the book will be less interesting by visual, by using human figures instead of animals. Also, I believe that visualizing with cats and animals was helpful for some people to understand the relationship between the Nazis and the Jews. For example, an image from page 62 clearly showed the fear of the mouse (Jew), due to the cats (Nazi). On the other hand, I think that the story would approach to us in a stronger way because it uses our kind as the characters. Also, I think it would call the readers to relate more on the Jew's feelings. 

How does Vladek feel about the hanging?

First of all, Vladek did not feel good at all about the hanging that happened. Because of the hanging, he did not go outside for a few days because he didn't want to pass where they were hanging (page 84). He also thought that there was a possibility of one of the hanged people could have told on him to the cats (Germans) to save themselves. On page 84, he claimed that the hanging still makes him cry. Due to this, the readers can clearly see that Vladek truly fears and cries when thinking of this coincidence.

Source

Question 3: Why did the Nazis dislike the Jews? 

After the loss of WWI, Hitler thought that the Jews were the reason for the loss and the economy fell down because of them. Germany's economy fell down. Also, he thought that his mother died by one of the Jew doctor by accident. Due to this, Hitler did not have a good opinion on the Jews. 

Source

Line Illuminator - Ivanna Hidalgo

Ivanna Hidalgo
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Week 1 - Pages 0-71
Job - Line Illuminator

“Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week…Then you could see what it is, friends! …” (Page 6)

"On the Nature of Morality." The Abstract. 12 Sept. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2015. <https://constantinewrathings.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/on-the-nature-of-morality/>.

            To begin with, one wants to point out that this book is mostly made out of dialogue; therefore there will not be almost any meaningful lines. Anyways, I chose this saying because it's something that can change an individual's perspective about life and friendship, mostly. One thinks that this is a powerful quote to share because it has its morality and ethnic to one part of it. Additionally, if one analyzes how a person acts in complete isolation, but with another person, will obviously act from its true self. In other words, this person can simply shout, push, pull, etc. without any self-consciousness caused to its true personality. As an illustration, I can act clever and all with the teacher; yet, I may be a cheater and persuade easily. However, that is because I have no reason to act like my true self when being with a teacher. On the other hand, I do have a reason to why I should act differently in isolation. Lastly, I chose this image because it reflects on how humans think in the inside. It reflects their sense of morality, which makes powerful or failure friendships.

'''I'm not going to die, and I won't die in here! I want to be treated like a human being!''' (Page 54)

"What Are the Strengths and Weaknesses of a Human Rights Approach to Development?" From Poverty to Power. Web. 07 Feb. 2015. <http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/what-are-the-limitations-to-a-human-rights-based-approach-to-development/>.

           Firstly, I chose this quote in specific, not because it is one of the strongest ones in the book, but because it represents human rights. According to the Google Dictionary, human rights means to have a right that is believed to belong justifiably to every person. The concept of the book itself makes readers think that human rights are invaluable; however, these two sentences make the book have power and the reason to defend human rights. In fact, human rights were a very debatable topic in the year 1938 because Jews suffered a great injustice, which was the fact that the Nazi party detested and punished them. Now, I chose this image with hands in the air reading something different representing the overall idea of human rights. This quotes does not only symbolize human rights, but it shows determination and courage. I noticed that Valdek was showing anger; yet fear at the same time. The fact that he made this choice encouraged other people in the camp, wrapping of the notion of the power of human rights.

Alicia Blog Post #1 Connection Captain

I noticed a connection between the book (or movie) The Life of Pi and the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman. Both stories have symbolism between the animals and humans. In Maus, the mice represent Jews and the cats represent the Nazis. This is a metaphor itself because cats chase mice, and the Nazis chased the Jews. There are also pigs, but I'm not sure who they represent, though it might be the Polish people. In The Life of Pi, All of the animals on the boat were actually representing the few survivors that escaped the ship in the storm. 

Hyena - the cook from the ship, kills both the "zebra" and the "orangutan",  represents the ruthless evil in the world 
Zebra - a young Chinese sailor whose leg is broken, represents the vulnerable things in life and how they are attacked (like by the "hyena" who eats the zebra ) 
Orangutan - Pi's mother, represents safety and protection
Tiger AKA Richard Parker - Pi himself, represents Pi's inner strength (when Richard Parker disappears once Pi is on land again, it shows he was never real, only what Pi needed for strength), kills the "hyena" 

Also, this semester we are going to read Animal Farm by George Orwell, which also includes symbolism between animals and humans.

link

link

Summative Blog Post #2

Andrew Fischer
Humanities Block 3
December 5, 2014

Book: Maus 

Historical Context Question:

     How did historical events influence the ideas in the novel?  What cultural issues may have influenced, challenged, or inspired the author?

Link

Response: 

      Maus has a lot of influences from historical events. One of the biggest events was when the Nazis started to take over the Jewish communities. This historical event was major in the book, because the citizens haven't heard that the Nazis were invading. They were surprised, because they only heard of the Nazis from a stand point that isn't so bad. He related the Nazis attacking one of the Jewish communities in the book and showed how it happened in this book. 
     Also, cultural issues helped inspire the author, Art Spieglman. Some of the cultural issues are when the Nazis gang up on the Jews. He showed how they did it and what the Jewish community did to stop it.

Literary Analysis Question: 

     What theme or themes does the author explore in the novel?  Which passages in the text connect to theme?

Link

Response: 

     There was a lot of themes in Maus. These are the themes that are the most important in the book, warfare, race, and memories from the past. All of these themes create the book and bring it all together. Warfare is all about the war going on while the Nazis were trying to take over the Jews and other countries. Race, is more about racism coming from the Nazis towards the Jewish communities. Also memories from the past is about the stories in the book coming from a generation before us. 

     Warfare, was a big theme in this book. This is because all the Nazis were at war with all the countries they tried to take over and other countries that want to stop them. The countries declared war on the Nazis for killing tons of Jews and for taking over other countries. Germany had created another World War, which crated the biggest warfare in history.

     Another theme was racism. Most of the racism in the book was from the Nazis killing, capturing, and torturing the Jewish community. They did this to them for no reason, they just wanted to do it. That is racist and that was a big part of the book. It was a big part because half of the warfare was from the Nazis racism towards the Jewish community. 

     The biggest theme in the book is memories. Memories are a big part in the book because the whole book is based off of memories from war veterans that had experienced the war itself. The person telling the story was a World War II veteran and had experienced a lot through the warfare. He tells about everything that happened to him. He made it through the war, the concentration camps, and all the other horrible things happening in World War II.