Personal, Social, and Cultural Contexts Established by the Frame Story in MAUS
The use of the frame story, an overarching narrative used to connect a series of loosely related stories, pervades literature. An example of a frame story on a large scale - tying together a whole book-length work, not a simple short story - can be found in Art Spiegelman's graphic novel MAUS. Each of the narrative's six sections is framed with snatches of the interaction between Vladek and Art during the "interview" that supposedly occurred to create the book. This framing helps us learn about Vladek's character, which we would not know about from his rather flat, unemotional Holocaust narrative.
In coming to understand this book, we must also take into account the fact that no work of literature exists in a vacuum, and all literature is affected by the social and cultural contexts of its author and its reader. MAUS is no exception. In MAUS, the use of frame stories helps to establish personal, social, and cultural context for the "main" stories told within.
In this effort to give literary works some sort of context, it seems that there are three "filters" through which any work of literature can be viewed. The first of these is what I will call the "personal context", that is, the information we amass about the previous experiences of the protagonist and other central figures of the work. Clearly, what has happened to a person, real or fictional, in the past will indelibly inform their present and future actions and emotions. The second "filter" is the "social context": the relationships that characters form among themselves. (In MAUS, I will also refer to this as the "familial" context, since the central relationship in the book is...
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...e graphic novel. This helps to clarify the cultural context in which Vladek views himself.
In conclusion, three different types of context are established by the "frame story" in the book. These are the personal, social, and cultural contexts which I have described. Perhaps there are others, but these three seem to be the most central to understanding the interaction of literature with its background culture. As there is reader-response criticism, perhaps we might propose a school of culture-response criticism, devoted to understanding the ideas portrayed in literature in light of the surroundings in which they were created.
"Captured in a photograph, without a frame,
You see her standing tall but you see no face to blame."
Tara MacLean, "Let Her Feel The Rain"
Works Cited:
Spiegelman, Art. Maus. New York, Toronto: Random House, Inc. 1973.
The first thing you notice when you turn the page is the color. It grabs your attention. The color is gold and it’s very bright. The color gold is suppose to represent things of value because gold is valuable. The writing on the article is blue and it has a blue camel right above the slogan. The blue and gold coorindates really well. This advertisement would make you stop and read on or even just look at the colors.
At the beginning of the Spiegelman’s narrative, Vladek and Art are completely disconnected from each other. They lack the conventional relationship between a father and son. There is no sense of understanding between the two, as if they had been strangers for their whole lives. Even from his childhood, Art experienced a sort of brutality and lack of understanding from his father, displayed in the small cartoon before Maus 1 begins. In this small comic, Art recreates a moment in his childhood when his father yelled at him for crying about his friends leaving him, shouting, “Friends? Your Friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week then you could see what it is, friends...
...ents what happened after the victim told his or her story to the readers. Perhaps that part was more important than the actual circumstance, because of what it did to people. Also, it accounted a relationship between those two generations joined together in discussion of what happened. In this case, it was Vladek and Art's - their relationship was negatively affected by the power of Vladek's past. Vladek was unable to move ahead with his life as a result of the trauma he received. His marriage with Mala was also destroyed because of old habits formed by his past. Confused and complicated emotions formed in Art for the overall sense of the book. This work showed how the past ruined the present and potentially the future as well. The stylistic features included in this comic, along with literary themes, created a peculiar book - dissimilar to other Holocaust works.
The following essay is concerned with the frame structure in Mary Shelley`s Frankenstein and its’ functions as it is suggested by Beth Newman`s "Narratives of seduction and the seduction of narratives". To start with, the novel Frankenstein is a symmetrically built frame narrative with a story at its center. This is not always the case with frame structured novels, as there are examples without a proper center (e.g. Heart of Darkness). The elaborate system of frames indicates that this center reveals some kind of a mystery. However, it would be wrong to asume that the center alone contains the meaning of the novel. On the contrary, the meaning of the novel is brought about by the relation between the different stories at the center and the frames around it.
Through the reading of background historical information and the novel of the same time period, one can see that literature is the reflection of the time period about which it was written. Historical data and fictitious characters are woven together to produce a realistic result.
My dad has always been there for me both as a parent and a friend. When I was little, my dad got involved in coaching in my little league baseball, basketball and soccer, and always made time for these father and son activities. We liked to play ball together and still do at times. My dad is a big sports fan and so am I, and I look forward to the weekends when we watch the ball games together. My dad started to take my to the ball games when I was about 5 years old, and we've been doing that ever since. But, playing ball isn't all that's important in life. My father has given me the necessary guidance and has taught me values as a person that have helped me develop from a child into a responsible adult. I want him to be proud of me too, and I know that he is.
The notion of the author has often been disputed when it comes to critical literary studies. The argument centers around one basic question: Should the author be considered when looking at a text? There are numerous reasons given as to why the author is important or why the ...
The frame story describes an exchange between the narrator and the vicar of the town Beauvale in England. The narrator has come to learn about the book that the vicar is writing, which is a compilation of stories about the English people and their personal encounters with non-worldly beings. The vicar reads the narrator a story about monks who lived in Beauvale in the fifteenth century and their encounter with what they believe is a devil. The monks look up from praying in the church to find a devil prying away at their window. The narrator, however, does not dwell on this story; instead, he moves on to inquire about the book the vicar is writing. In moving past this initial story, Lawrence sets up the frame story, but the reader is left to wonder how the story of the monks will connect with the inner story. The vicar subsequently begins telling the narrato...
Through the use of Shelley’s frame narrative, the reader was offered multiple perspectives to one text. Because of the multiple views, the readers change their attitudes and search for a deeper meaning behind the frame narrative. Frankenstein’s story related to Walton’s in the same way that the monster related to Victor’s narrative. By using Walton as the primary narrator, the author builds suspense and presents the readers with more details about the narrators in their emotions and drives.
Vladek’s failure to move forward from his past experiences causes him to suppress his pain. He is unable to express his emotions; as a result, he uses control as a coping mechanism. Vladek’s control is illustrated when he destroys Anja’s memoirs. Vladek explains, “After Anja died, I had to make an order with everything… These papers had too many memories. So I burned them” (1:159). By destroying any evidence that reminds him of Anja, he harms his own emotional stability. Moreover, burning the papers illustrates his attempt to cover up the reality that he cannot always have control over life. Vladek’s suppression leads him to use control in an unhealthy manner.
The ad is called “Someone waits at home, Don’t drink and drive.” The ad is about a guy
In the beginning of English 101 I was what you call a novice writer a person who only wrote what they felt was required. However, certain techniques that I learned in English 101 made me realize that writing was not about filling requirements; it’s about speaking out, exploring and proving a point. “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” (Trimble, 17) In John Trimble’s quote he tries to point out that writing is something that you grow with and learn as you go along. I believe this growth was achieved with a technique that was introduced to me by my professor called repetitive revision. What I found out was that revision of your essays helps in recognizing your mistakes and enhances the flow of your essays. By providing me...
...res that make these books continue to live on for centuries. Due to the constraints of the essay not all aspects of the narrative perspective could be discussed and the role they play with the novellas.
We see advertisements all around us. They are on television, in magazines, on the Internet, and plastered up on large billboards everywhere. Ads are nothing new. Many individuals have noticed them all of their lives and have just come to accept them. Advertisers use many subliminal techniques to get the advertisements to work on consumers. Many people don’t realize how effective ads really are. One example is an advertisement for High Definition Television from Samsung. It appears in an issue of Entertainment Weekly, a very popular magazine concerning movies, music, books, and other various media. The magazine would appeal to almost anyone, from a fifteen-year-old movie addict to a sixty-five-year-old soap opera lover. Therefore the ad for the Samsung television will interest a wide array of people. This ad contains many attracting features and uses its words cunningly in order to make its product sound much more exciting and much better than any television would ever be.
My father was always there for me, whether I wanted him to be or not. Most of the time, as an adolescent trying to claim my independence, I saw this as a problem. Looking back I now realize it was a problem every child needs, having a loving father. As hard as I tried to fight it, my dad instilled in me the good values and work ethic to be an honest and responsible member of society. He taught me how to be a good husband. He taught me how to be a good father. He taught me how to be a man. It has been 18 years since my father’s death, and I am still learning from the memories I have of him.