Alex Healey
Alright so we've finished Maus II!
As Jordan has posted below on specific questions regarding this segment of Maus, we can now in this post discuss thoughts about it as a whole, as well as elaborate on some of his points.
Whenever I finish reading Maus (It's my 3rd time now) I've always got some resonating feelings that keep me feeling thankful and respectful about life in general. Which leads me to my first question as we conclude this awesome comic.
1- What single page (if any) can you shut your eyes and still remember vividly from the whole collected ride through Maus I and II? Do you think of this page due to the content of the imagery, the narrative, the interesting panel arrangements, or all of these things. Don't turn to that page, and try to answer this question purely from memory. Why is your answer so vivid? What made this image successful to you?
Coming back to the ending chapters of Maus II we get several instances in Vladek's story where he as well as the other Jews were either celebrating about the war being over, but time and time again some remaining Nazi activity managed to mess things up further. The book kept going on as if the troubles of the camps were bleeding out into the world as the prisoners were slowly released.
2- Because of this, do you think that Vladek as well as any other survivors may continue to live their lives in an unusual way, as in saving every scrap of food, counting it every day, and bringing back scraps to the store, because of how they have been accustomed to living in fear of losing what little they had to begin with? This causes Vladek to become racist of blacks after he'd have his things stolen. My question here is do you think the slow integration back into society has somehow traumatized these people causing them to still act this way?
Now anyone reading my post before Jordan's below, take note that his question on chapter 4 is actually referring to page 116 (If you own Maus as part 1 and 2 and not a collected edition, of which there are several) And also his question on chapter 5 is vague to say the least. My last question for this post is going to help us better understand his question. Check his theory below his question as well as it is insightful on possibilities.
3- What did you take away from Vladek calling Art "Richieu" at the very end? Do you think Vladek has actually become further damaged by reliving his horrible past? Or is the Freudian slip just an accident meant to show that Vladek feels unconsciously accepting of his life?
1) One page I remember as containing a particularly horrifying image was p. 235. The images on this page stood out in my memory because the idea of people living in these conditions as well as the expressions on the faces of the deceased were shown in a very vivid way. Overall, I think Spiegelman succeeded in conveying very powerful emotions through this medium. Another page that stood out to me was 294, where Spiegelman chose to include an actual picture of his father from this time.
ReplyDelete2) I think this is definitely an interesting question. I feel that it makes sense for someone to develop somewhat eccentric behaviors after being through so much trauma. I was surprised when Mala told Art that despite being through the camps, their other friends did not exhibit the same behaviors as Vladek. It’s possible that this was always part of his personality, or that he had a tendency to act in such a way that was brought to the forefront due to his experiences during the war.
3) I don’t think it’s unusual for parents to call their kids the wrong names, so I didn’t read very much into Vladek calling his son by his deceased brother’s name. However, I do think this slip of the tongue was significant to Spiegelman, who has mentioned feeling like he is in competition with his brother, even though he did not survive through the war.
After finishing Maus, I feel that I learned many things about the war and holocaust that I was not previously aware of; and it was particularly enlightening to hear personal recollections of these atrocities. I really appreciated Spiegelman’s style of “telling it like it is” and despite his doubts about making this comic book, I think it was very well done and has obviously been successful.
When I close my eyes, what I can see most is the scene when Vladek is in the railroad car being transported from Auschwitz to Dachau. Vladek still had his thin blanket they the Nazi's gave him for the march and he tied it to hook in the railroad car to make a hammock like seat for himself. I specifically remember just the look on his face when he's sitting in it. There's a haunting focus to his countenance that, for me, embodied the "survival" mode Vladek got himself into.
ReplyDelete3. I felt slightly stunned when Vladek called Artie, "Richieu." The book really hit me after I read that and I had to spend some time reflecting on all the loss and sadness and beauty I had just experienced. I forgive Vladek for the slip. He had lived many lives before he finally died. Maybe Vladek was thinking about how excited he was to finally see Richieu, or maybe he had just been crying and looking at the picture before Artie came in, or maybe it's much much more than that. In a way, it is all of those things. I still can't really wrap my head over the enormity of loss that Vladek went through.
Out of the entire story of Maus, the one image that always comes to mind as the most vivid is the one where Anja’s father is yelling pressed against the glass as Vladek and Anja are snuck away from the transfer to Auschwitz. Seeing the way in which her fater looked, I could really feel what he must have been feeling. He knew he wasn’t going to live much longer. This image still haunts me. What makes this page so important is the way in which the image is framed. Anja’s father is somewhat being pulled away from his daughter. The image was so successful because it was one of the first losses that we saw. A loss that was being forced to let the weak go.
ReplyDeleteThe instances where Vladek and the other prisoners think they are being saved, but ultimately are not really show the reality of the situation. They took any chance they could get to be happy in this terrifying time knowing that around any corner, their lives could change drastically at the drop of a hat. The way in which Vladek returns the cereal is a good example of how these sorts of events could of changed him and others. Vladek is very conservative and when he doesn’t need something he either tries to give it away to others who might need it, or tries to use it to add back to his own useable rations. I think that they have a very quick transition back into society. It didn’t seem slow at all. They were thrown back into their free lives and there wasn’t much thinking needed to be done. Vladek, once out of the camps, went back to collect old belongings and continued to treasure the things he had and needed. He didn’t want to lose anything again because they might save his life someday. I believe that living a life of be judged by who you are might have pushed Vladek to be judgmental of others in protection of his own personal success.
At the end of the story, Vladek calling Art “Richieu” was sort of a weak point for Vladek. He was sort of losing his mind around that time which might contend for this mistake, or it could be because he sees Art as he does his first son, someone who he really cares for and looks as that one person that never let you down. Reliving his past, it seems that Vladek has sort of brought back his old feelings. He said a few times that he already thinks about this time a lot, so having to restate what happened is probably regular. I feel like Vladek is sort of accepting of his life now and looks to his history to further help him in his everyday choices.
I loved Maus. It is probably one of my favorite graphic novels. It tells a story in a way that others cannot, in a form that is slightly different. Art presents this story in such a realistic yet cartoonish way, sort of making the events in Vladek’s life more focused.
1) The page that I remember most vividly is the one where Richieu's caretaker kills herself along with the children. While this is not the most graphic page in the books, it is certainly the most heartbreaking. This stark reality is contrasted by the image of a Nazi smashing a kid on a wall on the previous page. This page isn't gory, its effectiveness comes from the way he depicts the woman's face. Her eyes are big and wide, and several panels are focused, unmoving on her face. It feels very cinematic, and it is very successful at getting emotion across.
ReplyDelete2) I think that once something enormously terrible happens to a person, like the Holocaust, they can never truly get over it. They will always be living the rest of their lives waiting, preparing for the next one. Vladek is probably pretty certain that nothing like what happened to him in WWII will happen again, but he still lives his life as if it is. This shows the emotional ripple that takes place in people. Nothing is ever an isolated incident, The Holocaust shaped Vladek for better and for worse.
3) To me, this was one of the most heartbreaking pages. Vladek is losing his memory, but as is often the case he can still remember the traumatic events of the past in vivid detail. Calling Art Richieu shows that he never really got over that, he may have moved on and established a whole new life for himself post-WWII, but Richieu was a part of him that died back then but still lives within him. He was the perfect child, because he never grew up and had the chance to make mistakes. I'm sure that for all of Vladek's life he would be thinking “Richieu would be this old now, I wonder what he would look like or be doing.” This is always the most heartbreaking part of losing a loved one, and I cannot even imagine the pain that Vladek must have felt his whole life.
ReplyDelete1. I’m actually happy that you brought this up as a topic of discussion because there are distinct parts of the story that I (so this is subjective) vividly took in opposed to others and I think the most shocking aspect for me was the role that the visuals played in this as opposed to the actual course of the narrative.
Maus is obviously a really work thematically, and it’s obviously heavy things to take in—genocide, starvation, torture, mass murder, terror, just abject conditions and existences all around. Yet the parts that stuck out to me weren’t necessarily the most horrific events, but the most jarring depictions.
Basically I noticed immediately when any sort of change in style occurred, and at any moment it did the scene tended to stick with me like a strike of lighting during an ambient storm. The switch to shoes drawn in a more realistic style and the panel arrangement that removed the anthropomorphic mouse head on the page depicting the first hanging (83 of Maus I… also on 84) I’ve mentioned before. When we see the soft cartoon style eyes show more hints of realism—like the protruding and receding eyes on the pile of corpses on page 95 of Maus II.
I noticed the almost dulling effect of the cartoonish subjects when I read the passage about Richieu and the other two children being killed by Tosha to save them from torture and execution on page 109. It was such a tiny panel with the three children turning around with their little button eyes, and I suppose on one hand this is a more sensitive depiction. There’s no flashy image to arouse discomfort in the viewer for some kind of cheap thrill… but at the same time it almost fictionalizes it to the point of a momentary, mindless dismissal. The brain isn’t looking at humans, so in a sense it kind of numbs out the fact that all of these events occurred to humans. We haven’t really talked about this, so maybe someone could pick it up from here and offer more input.
2. I think the important thing to realize when we examine some of the behaviors of Vladek (and maybe other survivors—but we didn’t really interact with any others deeply in the text) is that though he was free from the trauma of the concentration camp he underwent more years of trauma, trial, and suffering afterward, trying to survive in broken countries after the war. He never got a chance to really have mental recuperation from any of it because if he wasn’t always on his toes being neurotically set on survival he wouldn’t have made it out. And these habits did keep up years after, which is why he has strains socially and within his family. His wife committed suicide.
But it’s difficult. People live through traumatic experiences and they all emerge in different ways. I found the almost blind racism of Vladek really disheartening and while I feel like it’s okay to call his experiences the explanation it’s a little more problematic to use them as an excuse. Which brings me to my next point:
I’m actually really curious as to how people feel about Art in all of this. Do you have more sympathy to him, or his father? Do you think Art is not sympathetic enough? Do you think that the people who speak against Vladek have a point?
It’s more of a cultural question, I suppose—the responsibility or allegiance to and expected of the elders/the husband/the victim. Believe it or not I found this one of the heaviest things to reckon with in the text—how we’re actually supposed to feel about each character and how we are supposed to judge both them their responses as “right” or “wrong.”
Good point - Things definitely did not just magically become perfect for Vladek after the war. As he points out, it's difficult enough just growing older and dealing with all that comes with it. That's not even to mention the traumatic experience of adjusting back to life outside of Auschwitz. And after all that he and Anja had been through, I think it is particularly devastating that Anja committed suicide. It's amazing that they were able to survive through the war, but I agree that Vladek never really recuperate mentally. He sort of became set in his ways and he also refused to see a therapist, despite Art encouraging him to do so.
Delete1. The page that sticks out most in my mind is the page that shows Vladek speculating on how his friend was killed. When he mentions the German soldiers throwing the hats and then shooting the prisoners when they went to get them, it drew some interesting parallels with a few current events.
ReplyDelete2. I think it is less of the slow transition and more of all of the experiences that he had throughout. It reminds me, again, of the way people who lived through the depression still treat their things today.
3. To me, the fact that he called Art by his other son's name says less about his acceptance and more about his deteriorating mental state. It was clear that towards the end, he was having difficulty with keeping things straight, and his misnaming of his son represents the end of his journey, similar to the way that it started.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, the book as a whole, stuck in my mind, it was my first time reading it, and from the first page to the very last page, the scenery, the use of the animals to project different races, the flash backs of war and the back and forth between Vladek and Ash, it was all very moving. It was also very interesting to get a first hand perspective at what people had actually been through and what came of them after all the chaos.
Yes, I believe anyone who has lived under those kind of circumstances would be bound to still have some fear that they would have to endure them again. I would imagine it is very difficult and traumatizing to have to worry about if you have enough scraps of food the next day , and if you even made it alive until the next day,it is indeed very hard to forget. People hold onto past experiences and most associate whatever negative thing they have experienced to other experiences they deal with. Because Vladek was robbed by a black man, it is inevitable he would have a certain outlook on all black men, yes, it may be racist, but the bad experience he had enabled him to hold onto that idea, that all black men could possibly steal from him. I think although it may have been referred to as a slow integration back into society, people who go through war, are traumatized, and it will take them a lot longer than anyone else to integrate back into society, slow or not, some people still struggle and don’t integrate completely, many men who come back from war suffer from PTSD, many still relive all the horrible experiences they lived, unfortunately from what is brought about by war, it is very unlikely for anyone to come back from war unscathed or unaffected by what they have seen and been through.
In all honesty I can picture characters and panels but no page stuck firmly in my mind. The closest thing to that would have to be the final page. I'm not sure if it was because it was the last page, or it wrapped up so nicely. I was happy to see them reunited and for a story with so much struggle I'm glad it ended on the highest note available. I like that it showed the tomb stone explaining that she died much earlier than Vladek. It finishes on an uplifting straight forward note.
ReplyDeleteIn relation to question number two, its not surprising for someone in a traumatic situation (especially the holocaust) to react this way and I think with the skills that they found key to survival. I do not fault Vladek in the slightest for having these thoughts or opinions. Its an unfortunate outcome of severe trauma and post traumatic stress.
1) The page/image that comes to my mind whenever I think of Maus is the page wherein people and corpses are burned. The mice with their faces turned towards the sky in agony is the most powerful image to me. There are a lot of images I like more, and some even more poignant, but this is the image that comes to my mind when I think "Maus"
ReplyDelete1) The page/image that comes to my mind whenever I think of Maus is the page wherein people and corpses are burned. The mice with their faces turned towards the sky in agony is the most powerful image to me. There are a lot of images I like more, and some even more poignant, but this is the image that comes to my mind when I think "Maus"
ReplyDeleteThe page that does and has always stuck out to me is the page from Maus I where Spiegelman includes the comic his father found of his that depicted his mother's suicide. It is such strong imagery and maybe it also sticks out from the normal pages of the book but something about it has stuck with me.
ReplyDeleteI find it really hard to say that the Holocaust specifically is what made Vladek so difficult in terms of money. We get the contrast of Mala, who seems frugal but not to that extreme, and it was referenced that Anja would try to let Art get away without finishing his food. Therefore I really think this is Vladek's actual personality. I mean maybe without the holocaust he would have no argument to back up his habits and so he would have let more things go, but I think he really thinks trying to trade back opened boxes of cereal is a good idea. I mean, the way he survived the holocaust was organizing all types of deals like that, and many other people who were there did not do or think of anything like that.
I already talked about his racism but the "traumatization" of Vladek cannot be the reason for it. He said that he had never seen a black person before coming to America so his racist associations with them cannot have anything to do with the holocaust. And the integration back into society wasn't slow for him, at least the way he tells it he immediately found ways to make money again and got back on his feet. From his perspective we really don't see any mental damage. His racism comes from his own stubbornness and obviously that isn't something that is learned from the holocaust.
And again I am going to say that there is NO significance to Vladek calling Art Richieu. This old man was half asleep, he is dying, he got lost on the way home the day before, OF COURSE he is going to call a son by another son's name. Has no one ever been called the name of their parent or sibling by their grandparent before??? It is a symptom of old age not holocaust driven trauma.
I don't see any evidence that Vladek specifically was mentally damaged or traumatized by the holocaust. If anything, his racism points more to the idea that he WASN'T since he didn't learn anything. Obviously there would be some guilt and some things he could never recover from, but those don't seem to have affected his personality or mental facilities as I think some people are trying to infer.
1.I can definitely picture the end of Maus I. I remember sympathizing with both parties and trying to understand why each of then felt the way they did. Until Art called Vladek a murderer. That’s when it synched it for me, that Art wasn’t trying to paint himself as a good guy, or perfect son with an eccentric father. That scene was hard to read in general, but the word choice is what got me. Murderer? I went on a whole mental tirade about it! I mean, you’re a writer, Art, you didn’t just choose that word on whim, it was a deliberate choice to call your father a murderer. It was possible one of the best scenes BECAUSE of this however, not only was it creating drama but creating a look into the authors mind. The panel at the very end when he mumbles, “..Murderer,” is super memorable. Even after his father tried to defend himself, he still stuck by his words.
ReplyDelete2.Well yes and no. It was a traumatizing event to be in the camps. And out of habit - months and months of trying to survive Auschwitz - it is only logical that it sticks with you. And then to have happiness taken away time and again only makes that paranoid feeling grow.
3.I feel like it was bit of both actually. Having to tell of his sons death again, remembering a not-so-good past, it’s sure to bring bad things to the surface again. But It was seems like he hadn’t meant to say it. He’d also forgot Art had phoned that he was coming over, and was getting more and more weak and tried, and kind of quietly went in the end
Although there are numerous scenes from Maus that I find particularly memorable, I find that their memorability are less based on Spiegelman’s art style or his handling of the medium, and more on their thematic content: The children chasing Vladek, shouting at him “Jew!” The diagrams Vladek provides when describing secret compartments in the house. Vladek and his friend relaxing and working in the house with the American GIs. The thing about Spiegelman’s style is that it does not necessarily make a spectacle of itself in individual panels; most people would never call it an ostentatious aesthetic, even if most people knew what those words meant. However, that does not mean that it is not an unsuccessful for lackluster artistic rendering. To me, its charm is based on its consistency, where everything is rendered in an unassuming, almost believable manner. It doesn’t have to stand out because its message is bold enough already.
ReplyDeleteIt’s clear to me that Spiegelman had every intention of emphasizing the after-effects of the Holocaust when writing his story. I think Maus has to do more with the lives of those in the present than the historical events of the Holocaust itself. Spiegelman’s primary connection with the event itself is through his parents, and his relationship with them is what makes the story so palpable. Obviously Vladek’s been traumatized and shaped by the Holocaust. Him, as well as an entire generation of Jews. I can imagine Spiegelman’s first impetus in writing Maus was from his own experiences with his father’s scarring. The stress and expectations from his father all came from the huge impact that the Holocaust had on Vladek, and this, I believe, is what ultimately led Art himself to explore the Holocaust this way, to see how someone could be changed so drastically.
The page that comes back to me most vividly was the scene where Mala tells Art that his father found his comic after his mother committed suicide. The personal hell that Art had transcribed plus the jarring transition in art styles make it an unforgettable moment. The pure pain that Art was able to transcribe onto those pages is astonishing. The personal revelation, just took a lot of courage.
ReplyDeleteVladek's existence after his experiences during the holocaust was different than other survivors. Many of the survivors we have seen aside from Vladek have become relatively normal over the years, but with Vladek there was other factors onto what he has become. On top of surviving, he had lost almost everything in his life. Anja, which is the sole reason he had striven to survive, took her own life young into Art's life. He had been a victim of theft when he arrived to America. The shrink makes a comment that everyone was changed but to me it seemed that Vladek was an extreme case.
Vladeks slip at the end may have been more of an example that Vladek was passing on. Him speaking to Richieu may have been Vladek coming to terms that he was dying. What was concerning to me was the damage that comment had on Art at the end. Art, who had displayed his jealously of his brothers attention from their parents, would be devastated by this statement.
The page where Art is wearing the mask made an impression on me. I found its placement in the book at the beginning of part two established new layers and directions within the combined narratives. The focus on Art's struggle set the tone for the final page, which also made an emotional impression in the way it resolved Art's struggle and seemed to conclude Vladek's story at the same time.
ReplyDelete2. I think once a human being is forced to find such desperate means to stay alive, they are forever stuck in that mindset. I felt that Vladek's reaction to blacks says as much about what seems like his hypocrisy as it does about Vladek never being able to see the post-war world or the United States for what it was because he was stuck in his extreme survival mindset. In this sense it seems that one does sacrifice future understandings of their world when they are brought to such a base level of survival.
3. As Vladek has finally begun to let go, it seems that the moment he utters Richieu, he is both recognizing the loss of his first son, the survival of Art, and their combined legacy. Vladek has relived his memories for Art, despite himself, and the last and most important word he has left when all his energy is spent and his memory is gone, is 'Richieu'. This speaks to the beauty of the love Vladek has saved, past all the other treasures he so dearly protected throughout his tragic journey. That Art was there and that it came because of his presence, it is just as much a gift to replace the sadness of Anja's burned journals.