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*Please answer the question that corresponds to the group number in which you have been placed.*
1. Using specific examples from the book, compare the artistic and narrative styles of Maus with those of Prisoner on the Hell Planet. How does the form of each reflect its content?
2. Evaluate Spiegelman's decision to include the story of Lucia in the story. Why does Spiegelman feel it necessary to make the story of Jews in the Holocaust "more REAL, more human"?
3. Compare and contrast Maus with other narratives or movies that deal with the Holocaust.
4. Spiegelman portrays all Jews as mice regardless of their countries of origin or political affiliations. Why do you think Spiegelman chooses to portray them in that way?
5. Describe at least 3 instances in which Spiegelman makes an artistic deviation from the techniques used in the bulk of Maus in order to emphasize the emotional content of the story.
Julio Aira
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Question #1
In the prisinor of Hell, everything is drawn as a dark place where bad things happen. In Maus, with every problem that they face they always have a solution and they focus on the positive instead of the negative like in Prisoner of Hell. As you can see in the cartoons in the Prisiner of Hell book, every page has a person either crying or being negative and there is something bad going on.
Tavish Rice
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Question #3
One book that I could compare with Maus would be Anne Frank. In Anne Frank, Anne lives in a small permanent hiding place with her family and another family. However, in Maus, Vladek and Anja move from hiding place to hiding place never staying in a certain one for too long. Both stories take place during World War II, but Anne Frank lasts all the way until she is captured near the end of the war while Maus lasts only until Vladek and Anja are taken to Auschwitz. Lastly, Anne Frank is a nonfiction book and child’s diary from the war. On the other hand, Maus is written in the form of a comic book where the author cleverly incorporates one story into another by having a character recall the story as it happened.
William Kindelan
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Question 4
I think Mr. Spiegelman portrayed the Jews as mice because everyone is always killing rodents. Nobody likes mice or rats in their houses, so they kill them. It relates to Jews because Hitler referred to Jewish people as mice. He said they were different, and he killed them, just like you would kill a mouse if he was in your house. Hitler killed many Jews, as we kill rats and mice. Mice are different and gross to us. That is what Hitler thought of Jews. Hitler was a bad person. What he did was a terrible thing.
Armand del Castillo
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Question#2
I do not agree. Speigelman did not mean that humans are nothing more than animals. He is trying to show that mice are less than cats and mice are attacked by the cats. The Jews are getting attacked by the Gestapo, so this is a good comparasion. The mice hide in little holes when they are under attack. This is in comparison to the Jews, who also hid when they were under attack.
If I had to comepare Maus with a book or a movie, I would compare it to the movie The Boy In the Striped Pajamas. Both in Maus and The Boy In the Striped Pajams the main character is trying to survive the Holocaust. Another similarity is that both Maus and The Boy In the Striped Pajamas take place in the counrty of Poland. The differences between Maus and The Boy In the Striped Pajamas is that the main character in The Boy In the Striped Pajamas is already in concentration camp, and interacts with people outside the camp. Also in The Boy In the Striped Pajamas the war is almost over. In Maus the main character is trying to avoid going to concentration camp, and the war has not even started yet. I think Maus and The Boy In the Striped Pajamas are very similar.
ReplyDeleteAnthony Castro
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Question#1
Some similarities between Maus and the Prisoner On the Hell Planet is that both comics reflect on treacherous things happening to Art Spiegalman's family. In the Prisoner on the Hell Planet Art's mother commits suicide. In Maus Art's mother and father are sent to concentration camps in Germany. Due to the fact that they are Jewish they are believed to be different from everyone else and should be killed. Also, Vladek's son is killed in the war by the poison given to him by Tosha. Both comics include terrible things happening and both of them at least have one page that has someone crying or in missery. The difference between the two comics is the characters figure, in Maus the Jews are portrayed as mice, the Polish people as pigs, and the Nazis as as cats and in Prisoner On the Hell Planet characters are portrayed as humans.
Manrique Iriarte
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Group 3
Question 3
A book that I think relates to Maus is Anne Frank. Both books are about the Holocaust and in both books the characters are forced into hiding at some point in the story. The differences are that Anne Frank is a diary while Maus is a comic. Another difference is that the intention of the writer in Anne Frank is for herself, it wasn't meant to go public, but the intention of Art Spiegelman is for other people to know what happened to his father and the situations that they were forced to overcome. The final difference is that the story of Maus is written in present and past tenses, going back and forth as the father tells Artie the story of his experience in the Holocaust. However, Anne Frank is always in present time and always occurs in the same location.
Johnny Powell
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Question #4
I think that Speigelman portrayed the Jews as mice for many reasons. First thing is that Hitler would kill Jews without having any guilt. Whenever someone kills a rat or mouse, they do not really care. Hitler was basically an exterminator,but instead of killing mice, he killed Jews. No one likes rats or mice. In Germany, no liked Jews and nobody treated them with respect. People torture and experiment with rats and mice. Hitler would experiment, torture, and kill Jews. Mice are also defenseless. Jews were defenseless at that time. It was very smart of Art Speigelman to portray Jews as mice.
-Danny Dager
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-Question 2
I believe that Spiegelman decided to keep the part with Lucia so that he could show how Jews are the same as anyone else, they have relationships, feelings, emotions, and a backstory. By adding this part you don't only see Vladek as a survivor of the Holocaust but also as a regular young man having girl problems and having a typical relationship with a girl, just as anyone else would have. This also makes the story more believable and human-like because its a story before the Holocaust actually begins.
Rafael Marmol
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Question #5
There are many times that Spiegelman shows an artistic deviation in the book. For instance, on page one-hundred twenty-five there are roads in shape of a swastika which means that later in the book they are going to get caught. Another example is on page one-hundred one, Artie is bigger than Vladek which means Artie is taking care of Vladek. The last example is on page one-hundred fifty-five where Vladek and the people with him were unmasked. This means that they were caught or that their identity was discovered.
Nicolas Roca
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Question #2
I believe Art put Lucia's story in his story because it is Art's dad's first wife. She also has a great story because she was depressed, and that's what led to her death. I think he wants to make this story real because his father went through the Haulicaust, and he is getting to know how tough life was during the Haulicaust. He uses rats as the Jews and the cats as the Nazis. He used rats and cats because the Nazi's were the predators to the Jews, like cats are the predators to rats.
Jorge Gomez
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Question #3
A book I can relate with Maus is Anne Frank. They are alike because they deal with the Holocaust. Also, in both books they are in danger. Also they are both Jewish. They are different because in Anne Frank they had to live with another family in a small little room and in Maus they are constantly on the move changing from place to place. Another thing is that in Maus they are mice and in Anne Frank the characters are actual people. Also Anne Frank is the experience she had and in Maus it was the story of what happen to Art Spiegelman father, so it wasn't from his own experience.
Adrian Rey
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Question #3
I can relate the book Maus with Anne Frank. The books are alike in many ways including that they both deal with the Holocaust. In both books the main characters are Jewish people trying to hide from the Nazi's. They are also different in some ways. In Maus it is a comic book that talks about Art Spiegelman's dad, while in Anne Frank it is a diary about the girls own life. Also, in Maus Art Spiegelman portrays people as animals, but in Anne Frank anne portrays people as human beings.
Joshua Munoz
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Question #5
In the book, Maus, Art Spiegelman shows artistic deviation in a number of ways. One example is on pages one-hundred through one-hundred-four when he puts in scenes from a previous book he wrote. The book was called "Prisoner on Hell Planet", and was about his mother's suicide. In "Prisoner on Hell Planet" he dresses like a prisoner even though he is not a criminal. In my opinion he does this to signify that he feels his mother's suicide was his fault and he feels like a murderer. Also, on page one-hundred-twenty-five he draws a road that his parents were walking on in the shape of the swastika. This signifies that there is no hope for his parents and that no matter which way they turn it will lead to being caught. Another example is on page twelve where he uses many spaces to draw one cartoon frame so that he can make Vladek, his father, bigger and clearly show the numbers tattooed on his arm. The numbers tattooed on a person has always been a symbol of Nazi cruelty. I believe that he was trying to make it obvious that the Nazi's dehumanized people by branding them like animals.
Dominic Wermuth
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Question #4
In Prisoner on the Hell Planet, Art Speigelman makes the comic very dark and unhappy,and he is seen as a human not as a mouse. The seen is very tragic, and Art feels blamed. In Maus everything has a solution, and nothing is as dark as Prisoner on the Hell Planet. Also, the people are portrayed as mice instead of people.
Nicholas Perez
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Question #5
In Maus the book, Art Speigelman uses artistic deviation a couple of times throughout the book. One example of when Art uses artistic deviation is on page one hundred and twenty five, where its shows the Swastika in the form of a side walk. This means that whatever way they go, there will be danger. Another example of artistic deviation is on page one hundred and one, where it shows Art bigger than Vladek which means that Art is the one who's taking care of his father instead of the other way around. Finally, the last example of artistic deviation is on page eighty where it shows the six pointed star of David. It signifies how much the Jews had to do that the Germans didn't. This emphasizes the emotional effect of this story.
David Salazar
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Question #2
I think that Spiegelman decided to include the story of Lucia because it shows that Vladek was an ordinary man with other problems than the Holocaust. He had much in his head about relationships and women. With that story, it took the narrative into a realistic stage. It showed how many Jews had so much stuff in their heads and that’s sometimes how we feel about life, too.
Daniel Portuondo
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Question #5
There are many times in which Art Speigelman uses artistic deviation in Maus. For example, on page one hundred and twenty-five, the road Vladek and Anja are walking on is in the shape of a swastika, which means that the road will be dangerous, and wherever they go, the Nazis will be there. Another example, would be on page 64 in which Vladek is wearing a pig mask, this means that he probably wasn't wearing his identifiable six-pointed star of David and blended in with the polish. Finally, the last example would be on page one hundred one, in which Artie is larger thank Vladek, which means that he is watching over Vladek, rather than Vladek watching over him. Those examples emphasize some emotional effects in Maus.
Rodrigo Bustamante
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Question #1
Maus and Prisoner on the Hell Planet have artistic similarities. Both stories reflect a dark and sad artistic tone. For example in Maus, Anja who is depressed is often shown crying. You can also see through the drawings the sequence of events that lead to them going to the concentration camp. In Prisoner of the Hell Planet the characters are illustrated as being in pain and sad throughout the entire story. Specifically you can notice Art’s pain in the funeral of his mother. The narrative style in these stories is also quite dark and gloomy. In Prisoner of the Hell Planet the entire story bases itself on sadness, so most of the drawings and words are sad and dark. The entire comic shows unhappiness with no solution for their misery, and shows how difficult death can be. They feel that there is no hope. In Maus, even though there is much sadness there are some parts that show bits of happiness, like when they expressed gratitude for getting a loaf of bread. Vladek always has hope in solving their problems. Although these stories have some differences the theme of death and fear is seen in both through their pictures and words.
Daniel Sixto
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Question #1
Prisoner on the Hell Planet and Maus are similar artistically in a way that they both show people beeing sad or crying. In Prisoner on the Hell Planet Artie is sad because his mom died. In Maus Anja also gets sad because of everything that is going on like the war for example. That is what is similar in the narrative way. These stories are pretty similar in the way that everybody is sad, afraid, or crying. Sometimes they will have a solution for their sadness and sometimes they will not.
Christian Collazo Period 6 Question 2
ReplyDeleteArtie's choice to include Lucia in Maus, is needed because with out it your left believing that Maus is a children's tale.Also it shows that Vladek sometimes exaggerated through out the story and that shows he is not perfect, and therefore more human.