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.

Thomaz- Word Whisper- Maus

• Flashback- the story is Vladek having flashbacks of his past during World War II and he is sharing that with Artie. (The whole book is basically a flashback)

• Situational Irony- "Most they [the Nazis] took were kids- some only 2 or 3 years [old]. Some kids were screaming and screaming. They couldn't stop. So the Germans swinged them by the legs against a wall... and they never anymore screamed. In this way the Germans treated the little ones what still had survived a little. This I didn't see with my own eyes, but somebody told me. And I said, "Thank God with Persis [the man who was taking care of their children] our children are safe!" (pg 108). This demonstrates situational irony because later Persis is killed and the kids, along with Persis' wife, are going to be sent to Auschwitz and to a concentration camp where they would soon be murdered. So Tocha, Persis' wife, decided she didn't want her and the kids to go through this so she killed not only herself but also the kids.

• Dramatic Irony- "...You've all heard the stories about Auschwitz. Horrible unbelievable stories." "They can't be true!" (pg 107) This demonstrates dramatic irony because many Jews didn't know how bad the concentration camps not only in Auschwitz, but in general, were-- they considered them as rumors; however, they were still afraid, afraid to believe it. They didn't want to believe that all of this was happening to them. While they think this, we, readers, know that it is a completely awful place, much worse than those rumors they hear. 

• Simile- "Everyday the guards marched us about an hour and a half to work. The guards, it was Jews with big sticks. They acted so, just like the Germans." (pg 106) This is a simile because Vladek is comparing the Jewish policemen to the German policemen, saying that the Jewish police acted just like the German police. This is important because it shows the control of the Germans during World War II. During the book, Vladek says that the Jewish police did this just so they wouldn't get many of their already meager privileges away, if not be sent to the concentration camps.