Usually people cannot trust the things they find on the Internet. It is all too easy for individuals to put up false information and make it seem true by simply putting the information on a professional-looking webpage. As a result, people tend to place more trust in books, mostly because it takes far more work, time, and money for the words within the book to be spread, and those willing to spend these resources to be heard are less likely to be lying, according to their own knowledge. At least, this is what is assumed. While readers would like to be able to trust Art Spiegelman’s recount of his father’s story as a reliable source for information on the Holocaust, it may not be as reliable as presumed. First, one must look at what Art’s …show more content…
Vladek’s story clashes with Art’s research. Vladek insists that there was never an orchestra at the gates he passed through every day while Art states that he found well-documented proof otherwise. (Spiegelman 214). Art apparently decides to go with his research as he includes the orchestra in Vladek’s depiction of the scene despite his stating it was not there. Although this particular instance does not seem important or even cause any strife, it does show how unreliable they both are at narrating. It causes the reader to question whether or not to trust in research or in an eye-witness account. Again, Art has perhaps chosen to be “real” rather than accurate because being real includes having bias and an emotional attachment in order to effectively portray the feelings in the context of an event. The only case in which Art breaks this pattern of telling the “real” story is on the last page. In this instance, Art decides to let his father’s romantic narrative play out, even though the reader already knows that the narrative doesn’t have such a happy ending, due to Anja’s suicide. (Spiegelman 295) Perhaps this is to suggest Art’s realization that his father’s stories are better left
The tragedies of the holocaust forever altered history. One of the most detailed accounts of the horrific events from the Nazi regime comes from Elie Wiesel’s Night. He describes his traumatic experiences in German concentration camps, mainly Buchenwald, and engages his readers from a victim’s point of view. He bravely shares the grotesque visions that are permanently ingrained in his mind. His autobiography gives readers vivid, unforgettable, and shocking images of the past. It is beneficial that Wiesel published this, if he had not the world might not have known the extent of the Nazis reign. He exposes the cruelty of man, and the misuse of power. Through a lifetime of tragedy, Elie Wiesel struggled internally to resurrect his religious beliefs as well as his hatred for the human race. He shares these emotions to the world through Night.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
Rosenbaum, Alan S. Is The Holocaust Unique?. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2008. 387. Print.
...he So-Called Mischlinge.” The Holocaust and History. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998. 155-133.
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story. These stories are laden with humor, but have, like all other stories, an underlying theme. Both themes of these stories are “implied,” and provide an excellent stage to compare and contrast a story on.
At the outset, Atwood gives the reader an exceedingly basic outline of a story with characters John and Mary in plotline A. As we move along to the subsequent plots she adds more detail and depth to the characters and their stories, although she refers back with “If you want a happy ending, try A” (p.327), while alluding that other endings may not be as happy, although possibly not as dull and foreseeable as they were in plot A. Each successive plot is a new telling of the same basic story line; labeled alphabetically A-F; the different plots describe how the character’s lives are lived with all stories ending as they did in A. The stories tell of love gained or of love lost; love given but not reciprocated. The characters experience heartache, suicide, sadness, humiliation, crimes of passion, even happiness; ultimately all ending in death regardless of “the stretch in between”. (p.329)
Gottfried, Ted, and Stephen Alcorn. Deniers of the Holocaust: Who They Are, What They Do, Why They Do It. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century, 2001. Print.
Bard, Mitchell G., ed. "Introduction." Introduction. The Holocaust. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2001.
The holocaust can be arguably the biggest historical event ever in which Hitler and the germans killed more than 6 million Jews. Many non-fiction texts can be both objective and subjective. Most people use more objectivity than subjectivity in stories like “At the Holocaust Museum” By David Oliver Relin. Objectivity has facts and measurable numbers while subjectivity has opinions and point of views. This article was both subjective and objective to show information about what happened in the holocaust.
At the first glimpse of Art and Vladek, there is a sharp view of Art’s childhood. Crying over b...
Both Art and Vladek are very distant from one another. There is a lot of tension, mostly coming from Vladek’s compulsive behavior and strange actions which annoy Art. His actions are very hard for Art to comprehend as he did not experience what his father did during the holocaust. The impact horrific events such as the Holocaust had on his life ultimately affected him and his relationships with other individuals this could be due to being distant from family and friend for so long, and in that situation everyone only looked out for themselves. Finally Art stated “I can’t even make any sense of out my relationship with my father...How am I supposed to make any sense out of Auschwitz?...of the holocaust? “
Does the blame of the Holocaust fall on more than just the Nazis? Could the mass genocide of the Jews be the world’s fault? Art Spiegelman develops a message of guilt on both a personal and collective level. In his graphic novel, Maus, children cannot connect with their parents, holocaust survivors, because they have not experienced the same type of hardship. Similarly, the communal problem is that people in the world should have done more internationally to help the Jews. Spiegelman continually shows the reader guilt through syntax while describing the relation between Vladek, Art’s father, and Art.
Some of the characteristics of Modernism are: a desire to break conventions and established traditions, reject history, experiment, remove relativity, remove any literal meaning, and create an identity that is fluid. The rejection of history sought to provide a narrative that could be completely up for interpretation. Any literal meaning no longer existed nor was it easily given; essence became synonymous. Narrative was transformed. Epic stories, like “Hills Like White Elephants”, could occur in the sequence of a day. Stories became pushed by a flow of thoughts. The narrative became skeptical of linear plots, preferring to function in fragments. These fragments often led to open unresolved inconclusive endings. This echoes in the short story’s format. The short story functions in fragmented dialogue. Focusing on subjectivity rather than objectivity. Creating characters with unfixed, mixed views to challenge readers.
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.