The Life and Times of Charles Bukowski
One night in Andernach, West Germany, a sergeant in the United States Army serving in Germany crossed paths with a woman following the defeat of Germany from World War I. He had an affair with her, Katharina, whom was a German friend’s sister, and she became pregnant. A month before the baby was born, they wedded. On August 16, 1920, the baby boy was brought into the world and was named Heinrich Karl Bukowski, but we simply know him as Charles Bukowski. He would live on to be one of the nation’s best acclaimed poets to date. (Miles).
By 1930, Bukowski’s family had settled in South Central Los Angeles where his father and grandfather had previously worked and lived but by the 30’s, but Bukowski’s father was often unemployed. During Bukowski’s early childhood, he was shy and anti-social and constantly ridiculed at school for his German accent, his clothing and as a teenager for his severe case of acne; although he was praised for his art work from his teachers, he suffered a battle with dyslexia. Sadly, his home life was not well, either. In his autobiography, Ham on Rye, Bukowski brings the reader to understand that he was repeatedly abused both physically and mentally by his father, beating him for the smallest offence imaginable, while his mother stood by, watched, and agreed with his father. (Miles).
By 2003, Bukowski had a film out, Bukowski -- Born Into This, and in the film he states that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the adolescent ages of 6 to 11. Though traumatic and terrifying to believe, he credits his father for doing this by stating that it helped him with his writing. He claimed that it helped him to understand undeserve...
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Works Cited
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In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the audience is led through a very emotional story of a Holocaust survivor’s life and the present day consequences that the event has placed on his relationship with the author, who is his son, and his wife. Throughout this novel, the audience constantly is reminded of how horrific the Holocaust was to the Jewish people. Nevertheless, the novel finds very effective ways to insert forms of humor in the inner story and outer story of Maus. Although the Holocaust has a heart wrenching effect on the novel as a whole, the effective use of humor allows for the story to become slightly less severe and a more tolerable read.
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.
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