When most people refer to literature that concentrates specifically on the Holocaust as the subjects, the first thought usually isn’t in the form of a graphic novel. Most people would believe a graphic novel is something only a child would read or someone to the same educational equivalent. Due to their engaging stories and appealing visuals though, graphic novels are idea for visual learners, inexperienced or unenthused readers, and just about anyone else who may not find traditional print books enticing. Graphic novels tend to show a relationship between the images and the text that makes for an experience in itself (1.). Sometimes even taking on a difficult subject, an example being the Holocaust can make for a different kind of experience. In Maus I & II, the author chose graphic novels as his medium. For that, “Maus shines due to its impressive ability to ‘speak the unspeakable’ by using the popular maxim, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ to perfection” (3).
As mentioned before, graphic novels can be great tools for some, if not all, readers. As well the holocausts can be a difficult subject, not always easy to read about. Using graphic novels, which often is associated with children, to represent a traumatic event can be problematic: “The enormity of atrocity is such that the very act of representing it risked trivializing or over-dramatizing it,”(2). In other words, the author has to be very cautions when writing serious graphic novels not to get too creative and dramatize the situation even more than what already was. Spiegelman presents his vision of the legacy of the Holocaust in a new and innovative way—through images and words simultaneously.
Spiegelman uses many different strategies to keep his graphic no...
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...us subject such as the Holocaust can entice all types of people, so the readers should be just as broad in a sense. By using many different strategies, Spiegelman creates a bonding relationship between the image and the text unlike any other graphic novel of his time.
Works Cited
1. In Schools and Libraries, Graphic Novels. 18 Apr. 2011 http://www.ipl.org/div/graphicnovels/gnsSchoolsNLibs.html
2. “Visualizing Memory in the Graphic Novel.” Concordia Undergraduate Journal of Art History 18 Apr. 2011 http://cujah.com/publications/volume-vi/visualizing-memory-graphic-novel/
3. “The Unusual Structure of MAUS.” American Literacy Traditions 18 Apr. 2011
4. “The Comic Book Style.” American Literacy Traditions 18 Apr. 2011 < http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/maus.htm >
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.
The poster for Schindler’s List illustrates the magnitude of the Holocaust through appeals to pathos, ethos, and logos by showing the significance of each human being, and commenting on a broken peoples hope for the future. The simplicity of the Spielberg’s poster amplifies the message being conveyed. Spielberg, through this poster, urges viewers
Since the publication of, Night by Eliezer Wiesel, the holocaust has been deemed one of the darkest times in humanity, from the eradication of Jewish people to killing of innocents. Wiesel was one of the Jewish people to be in the holocaust and from his experience he gave us a memoir that manages to capture the dark side of human nature in the holocaust. He demonstrates the dark side of human nature through the cruelty the guards treat the Jews and how the Jews became cold hearted to each other. Wiesel uses foreshadowing and imagery, and metaphors to describe these events.
The story Maus is a graphic novel about a son Artie interviewing his father Vladek because Vladek survived the Holocaust. Vladek is explaining to Artie what his life was like during the Holocaust for him and his family. Vladek was the only one left still alive during this time to tell the story to Artie. The story has many different links to the history of the Holocaust and helps readers understand the horrible facts these families had to face. Since it is from the perspective of someone who lived through it, it helps the reader understand really just what was going on in this time. The graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman offers the modern reader a unique window showing the horrors and the history of the Holocaust and its repercussions by the differences of Vladek’s past and present, the value of luck, guilt that Artie and Vladek felt, and the mice characters being a representation during this time of racism.
However, we not get to experience that unshakable foundation. In the novel, Vladek goes into detail on the bunker that him and Anja lived in while they hid during their time in Srodula. In this panel, Vladek is shown creating a picture in his notebook for Art to see, and then the reader gets to see the finished project. Although it is a roughly drawn image, it appears that the bunker is hidden under a coal bin. The image of the bunker is described with arrows and words to point out what is what. In Joshua Brown’s essay “Of Mice and Memory,” Spiegelman explains the importance of research: “I don’t feel comfortable until I know what it is that I’m drawing, where it’s situated....even though what finally represents that space is so modest that somebody can project a whole other space onto what I’ve drawn” (4). Art Spiegelman knows a bunch of factual information, but in his writing he refuses to showcase the Holocaust as an open and shut case. Being confused, and vagueness, keeps us from claiming too much. In an Interview that Art had with Andrea Juno, he states that the work in his comics, “I’m not interested in masking it [confusion], I’m interested in riding it” (
To sum up, World War II is the most destructive human endeavor in history. Battles are fought on every continent and involved more than sixty countries, affecting about three-quarters of the world’s population. Six million Jews are murdered by the Nazis from all of the civilians in Europe for extermination. The memory of Holocaust has made the world more sensitive to genocide. The Holocaust has a particular impact on the Jewish people, who vowed never to allow such a thing happen again. The Night and Fugitive Pieces are two impressive books which show readers a fact of Holocaust and tell the world even the situation is worst, love from families and friends, faith and intension of alive may ensure them alive.
It shows this through its comic book style drawings on a topic that is difficult to explain. With the illustration throughout the story it shows the true meaning of a picture is worth a thousand words. Compared to any other type of Holocaust book it would be hard for a person who did not go through the Holocaust to understand what was taking place during that time. Most books are just written, no images. It is just a plain book with many descriptions. Unlike those "Maus" took on another type of perception. Humans have the ability to understand and reason things but with all of that it is hard to understand the extent of the Holocaust through just words. So Art decided to included drawings in a comic book form to allow readers to understand what was going on without having to imagine it. His book allowed its readers to see what was taking place while reading it. That is what the main difference is compared to other narratives. Also, his use of symbolism allowed the reading to understand what was going on without drawings of humans but animals. An example of this was the Nazis being represented by cats and the Jews represented as mice. In reality we know that the cat always tries to kill the mouse. During that time Jews were the pest to societies and the Nazis had to fix that. Also, with this in reality it is normal for a cat
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.
By means of comic illustration and parody, Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel about the lives of his parents, Vladek and Anja, before and during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II delves into the emotional struggle he faced as a result of his father’s failure to recover from the trauma he suffered during the Holocaust. In the novel, Vladek’s inability to cope with the horrors he faced while imprisoned, along with his wife’s tragic death, causes him to become emotionally detached from his son, Art. Consequently, Vladek hinders Art’s emotional growth. However, Art overcomes the emotional trauma his father instilled in him through his writing.
During 1925, Mein Kampf was published by the Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler. In this autobiography, where Nazi racist ideas originated, he depicted his struggle with the Jews in Germany. These ideas sparked World War 2 and the Genocide of the Jews. The tragedy of the Holocaust inspired authors, such as Art Spiegelman who produced a Graphic novel, where both the text and images helped him convey his own ideas and messages. In fact, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus is an effective medium for telling a Holocaust narrative and specifically his father’s story of survival. Through this medium, he is able to captivate the readers while providing interesting insight into the tragedy of the Holocaust by using the symbols of animals, the contrast between realism and cartoon imagery and the various basic elements of a graphic novel.
Using lines and basic shapes to emphasize shading and detail and then teamed with such a complex theme, Art’s story and graphics join together in a complimentary marriage. With the nearly childlike drawings and the intense mature storyline, there is a message that this is being written by the child telling the story of the parent. The story emphasizes his father’s inability to grow and repair from his past but even without the words you can almost see that Art has never truly be able to move past his the trauma of growing up with his parents. Using his frustrations and the need to explore the history of his father’s idiosyncrasies, Art creates a poignant story not only about the tragedy of the holocaust, but of the realities of being a child growing up with survivor parents.
The books Maus I and Maus II, written by Art Spiegelman over a thirteen-year period from 1978-1991, are books that on the surface are written about the Holocaust. The books specifically relate to the author’s father’s experiences pre and post-war as well as his experiences in Auschwitz. The book also explores the author’s very complex relationship between himself and his father, and how the Holocaust further complicates this relationship. On a deeper level the book also dances around the idea of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. The two books are presented in a very interesting way; they are shown in comic form, which provides the ability for Spiegelman to incorporate numerous ideas and complexities to his work.
The Holocaust is one of the most horrific and gruesome events in world history. It took a great toll on millions of lives in one way or another. One person in particular is Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, consists of two main narratives. One narrative occurs during World War II in Poland, and the other begins in the late 1970s in New York. In relation to each other these two narratives portray the past and present.Throughout the novel, we often see Art Spiegelman questioning why his father acts the way he does. Although the war is over, the events of the Holocaust continue to influence the life of Vladek. Why do we allow the past to effect the present? Vladek's personality is largely influenced by his Holocaust experience. In Maus I and II, Vladek was stubborn, selfish, and cheap because of his experiences in the Holocaust.
The Holocaust was a terrible time, where the Nazis were eliminating Jews due to a misunderstanding that was passed down from Adolf Hitler to the Germans. Hilter filled the minds of Germans with hatred against Jews. Books such as Maus and Anne Frank has been able to suppress the horror of the holocaust. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is about Art Spiegelman’s father Vladek Spriegelman and his experiences enduring the holocaust. Anne Frank, by Ann Kramer is about Frank and her friends and family struggling to survive the holocaust, yet in the end only her dad, Otto Frank is the only survivor. The author of the book Anne...