Day One (2/14): When I hear or see the word “comics” many words come to mind such as, news papers, books, children, Sundays, superhero and partners in crime. Before learning about comics, I would define “comics” as a narration of a story with pictures and captions in a certain order, that are often printed in a book or newspaper.
Day Two (2/17) After reading Understanding Comics and a class discussion, I changed my initial definition of “comics” to “a sequence of images and pictures intended to get a certain response from the reader”. I decided to change my definition because I felt that it was too narrow, and I applied others ideas into my new definition. From the beginning of Maus, the reader automatically feels bad for the characters, the first pages of the book shows Artie being bullied by his friends at a young age, and his father, Valdek, is not sympathetic towards his son. Through out the book, I felt really bad for Valdek, his new wife, and Artie because Valdek’s first wife, and Artie’s mother, Anja’s death is still affecting them years after. Nothing ever seemed to go right for the characters in Maus, whenever one good thing happened to them, there wasn’t much time in between for the characters to enjoy a happy moment, before something bad would happen, which again, made be really sad for the characters. One question I had about Maus, was why were the characters mice? After having a large group discussion, we figured out that the author, made the characters not human, because it allows you to think of the characters as not human, and possibly feel different emotions towards the characters since they are not human.
Day Three (2/19) I selected the scene from Maus where Valdek, Art’s father, is complaining about his seco...
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...chool on the island for Chris so he would not have to leave and would not be exposed to other children. Slate also required Gwen to have plastic surgery, and a work out routine after she had Chris so she would be more appealing to look at for the viewers. Slate not only manipulated the characters, he manipulated and lied to the world, he hid the fact that Gwen had twins, not only from her but from the world, Slate also knew that there was a chance that Chris was not a clone of Jesus, but portrayed him as so for fame and money.
So far I have really enjoyed this section of “religion and comics”, before this class, I had never read a comic besides the ones in the Sunday paper. Maus, A Contract With God, and Punk Rock Jesus have allowed me to explore, a part of literature I never thought I would enjoy, while learning about religion outside of a traditional textbook.
The graphic novels Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman possess the power to make the reader understand the pain and suffering that takes place during the Holocaust. Spiegelman uses animals instead of humans in his graphic novels to represent the different races of people. The use of visual mediums in Art Spiegelman’s Maus enhances the reading of the narrative. The graphics throughout the novel help the reader fully understand everything that is happening.
“Often fear of one evil leads us into a worse”(Despreaux). Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux is saying that fear consumes oneself and often times results in a worse fate. William Golding shares a similar viewpoint in his novel Lord of the Flies. A group of boys devastatingly land on a deserted island. Ralph and his friend Piggy form a group. Slowly, they become increasingly fearful. Then a boy named Jack rebels and forms his own tribe with a few boys such as Roger and Bill. Many things such as their environment, personalities and their own minds contribute to their change. Eventually, many of the boys revert to their inherently evil nature and become savage and only two boys remain civilized. The boys deal with many trials, including each other, and true colors show. In the end they are being rescued, but too much is lost. Their innocence is forever lost along with the lives Simon, a peaceful boy, and an intelligent boy, Piggy. Throughout the novel, Golding uses symbolism and characterization to show that savagery and evil are a direct effect of fear.
In the essay “Kids’ Stuff” Michael Chabon argues that comic books have become too centered around adults and need to be more focused on youth readers like they were during his childhood. Chabon claims that the authors goal audience has changed over the years.Comics that were once written for children are now written to appeal to adults. Throughout the essay, Chabon disagrees with the authors choice to aim comics toward adults instead of children. He feels that authors should write children stories for children.
In Art Spiegelman’s comic series, MAUS, each race in the storyline is analogously depicted as a different animal. This essay will explore the various benefits, drawbacks and their counteractions, that are confounded with author’s choice of this illustration. It can be argued that choosing animals to represent humans, in an event as complex as the Shoah, dehumanizes victims even more. Humans conventionally see species of animals as collective entities rather than individual beings. Thus, by representing all the Jewish people as one type of animal, the reader might unconsciously generalize all the victims’ sufferings and discourses into one coherent image, in order to make sense of things. On the other hand, depicting each race as a certain animal
In the first half of Theology 104, we went over many different topics. All these topics gave me a wonderful and better understanding of Theology and Christianity. I got a better understanding of Jesus claiming to be God, as well as our character development and how it plays a very vital part of our lives as Christians. By asking Jesus into our lives, we will be highly rewarded. For this I am
The Maus series of books tell a very powerful story about one man’s experience in the Holocaust. They do not tell the story in the conventional novel fashion. Instead, the books take on an approach that uses comic windows as a method of conveying the story. One of the most controversial aspects of this method was the use of animals to portray different races of people. The use of animals as human races shows the reader the ideas of the Holocaust a lot more forcefully than simply using humans as the characters.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher, the character Roderick Usher exhibits severe mental illness. Most of Poe’s writings are psychological in nature. The Fall of the House of Usher is a great example of this. Poe’s life was filled with many tragic events. The unpleasant outcome of his early years resulted in a great Gothic Romantic writer. He is a master of writing psychological thrillers, adding suspense and mystery in his stories. The topics of his writings are a concoction of unpleasant, austere, and grotesque things, thus the reader can be left feeling squeamish and susceptible. We are drawn into Poe’s stories by our intrinsic human nature of curiosity and intrigue. This paper gives examples of Poe’s literary style as we examine Roderick’s metal state through his words and appearance.
Immigration is receiving both liberal and conservative views, and has become a hot topic on the ballot. Whether or not to establish immigration reform solely lies upon the people of the United States; But not all wish to show the positive outcomes of having immigrants in the United States.
Poverty and homelessness are often, intertwined with the idea of gross mentality. illness and innate evil. In urban areas all across the United States, just like that of Seattle. in Sherman Alexie’s New Yorker piece, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the downtrodden. are stereotyped as vicious addicts who would rob a child of its last penny if it meant a bottle of whiskey.
This was by far my least favorite paper of all of them simply because "The Dubliners" is incredibly hard to understand when you don't have enough time to read back through it like I had previously to understand the other stories. "The Dead" and "The Sister's" are two different stories. "The Dead" is the longest story in "The Dubliners" and the most difficult to understand because of the many different themes running through it. While "The Sisters" is much shorter than the latter, with an easier storyline.
Stephanie Shemansky HUM3070 Directed Research Paper Assignment Stereotyping in Comic Books First were going to talk about how stereotypical male roles dominated the early scene in comic books. In many comic books the male is the one who always turns out to be the hero. For example Superman who first appeared in the comic book scene in 1938 is one of the world’s leading super hero comics (Superman in the Comics / http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics.php#).
...es Art an inner power struggle. Subsequently, Art becomes resentful. Art’s resentment towards Vladek does not allow him to emotionally mature. Yet through writing Art forgives his father and becomes a man.
Art Spiegleman's comic book within the comic book Maus is titled "Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History." This text within a text describes, in horrific detail through pictures, Artie's failed effort to get through the painful loss of his mother due to suicide. This text also in a way, represents a part of Artie's mind where he expresses his feelings of loneliness, doubt, fear, anger, and blame through the form of a dark, gloomy, depressing cartoon.
The comic book form is very useful in telling a story as complex as Maus. Usually, comics are associated with fun and lightheartedness, but Maus is almost the complete opposite. It is a serious story of one’s recollection of the holocaust. Not exactly light reading.
Humans pride themselves on being civilized so much that we use the word humane, which steams from the root word human and is defined by Dictionary.com as being “characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering and distressed.” We pride ourselves on being able to rise above our animalistic nature yet in the darkest hours of our history you are able to see the beast that lies within humans: you are able to bare witness to the atrocious acts of violence and hatred. Spiegelman knowing this animalistic sense of ourselves through the use of animals creates a human connection that resonates with the reader. Spiegelman decided to portray the characters in his novel Maus as animals; he as a writer