my experience in reading this novel was not good. i didn't enjoy it one bit! from what i understand its about a guy who was talked into going to war by his teacher then became cold and merciless and ends up dying in the end.
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Himmelstoss is a character that changes through the novel. in the beginning, he is a normal, (assumed to be friendly) postman, but then be changes into a merciless drill-sergeant comparable to the image of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and finally, a cowardly soldier on the front.
It is an Anti-War story. All the youths from the Gymnasium (high school) who enlist believing the Professors propaganda are the protagonists, Paul, Tjaden, Müller, Albert. How each is killed as the story progresses showing the futility of National patriotism. The story gives life to each in his turn. Showing the privations, and then the deprivation as the war grinds on. Until the final Butterfly scene.
Paul Bäumer is the protagonist in the novel all quiet in the western front. he is a young German soldier fighting during World War I. he is also the narrator of the novel. He is, at heart, a kind, compassionate, and sensitive young man, but the brutal experience of warfare teaches him to detach himself from his feelings.
yes, finally I am almost done! this is my last blog post that I have to do on MAUS ( i think and hope) and you know what I just thought of? you know how the books have numbers on them? its like if they themselves are jews.. my teacher should be proud, I been seeing things that most people don't because they don't pick apart every little thing! anyway getting back on task, this book ended with a picture of Vladek's tombstone shared with Anja. this is a different way to end book 2 then he did in book 1 because in book 1 he was calling his dad a murderer for burning all the things the connected to the past like Anja's diaries. art really wanted those because it would help him a lot making the comic. but the end of this comic was numb I guess? its hard to explain because it feels cold but not cold as in mean just cold like an ice blue and it just puts the brakes on and stops it. I can't work it very well. Vladek and Anja leave Poland after the war because Poland was just a place to go after the war to meet up and they don't wanna stay there. I'm not sure where they went, though. he was also warned not to go back to Sosnowiec because they are still capturing jews down there. so obviously no one will want to go there unless they wanna die but that would still be dumb because they were in the camps for so long if they wanted to die there they should of there. that's another thing I don't understand. why don't they kill them selfs I know that sounds dark but really why don't they?
in chapter four starting on page 274, there is the inclusion of the photographs of Anja’s family that Vladek shows to Art. sadly Anja’s and Vladek’s family don't survive during the holocaust? There are a few photographs included in the text. Spiegelman includes them to give it more realism and to help tell us who is who. on page 265 the jews rejoice in happiness because the war is over. after the train stopped everyone got off and some went one way and some another. they didn't know where they were going but they kept walking but they kept being held up by nazi soldiers but they exclaimed again and again till they found a barn and hid out. they stayed there for a bit even when bombs started going off. after vladek went out to see if the coast was clear. where he found milk and drank a lot of it but he then felt sick after because his body wasn't used to having this much food in his system. he also ate chicken which he also got sick from but hey if you're hungry then your hungry. then the Americans came. the panel had the American flag in the background to help up figure out what was going on probably and I feel like it gives a feeling of safety and freedom. but of course, thats coming from an American so I don't know. the Americans took them in to let them stay with them but they had to help out which they were happy to do. on page 277 vladek has another heart attack and isn't able to do anything after that because he originally was planning on getting help from artci to fix storm windows but now that he can get up he wants him to come back the next day.
two more blog posts after this one, so close come on, I can do it. anyway, on page 258 panel 7, there is a scene with the hitchhiker is included. I this it was actually very important. it builds off of what the psychiatrist says in the second chapter. here vladek freaks out saying "PUSH QUICK ON THE GAS!" because he is colored. the man is a dog meaning American and is black. vladek calls this man a "shvartser". from this it shows that he is a racist. and arts wife comments on his outrages behavior by saying "how can you of all people, be such a racist! you talk about blacks the ways Nazis talked about the Jews!" to which he replies "I though really you are more smart than this, Francoise... it's not even to compare the shvartsers and the Jews!" it really just shows how narrow-minded people are. I'm really glad that they picked him up and drove him home then disagreed with vladek. he had to get on a train and go where they did not know on page 246. he then saw two meat hooks hanging from the ruff so I pushed his way over there and hung his blanket up there into a hemic to stay above the rest. this really helped him survive because there was no water but he was able to reach out the window to grab some snow and eat it. being above the others also helped because there was a person cralling on the floor stabbing people in the ankles where he says "it wasn't the room to fall...and if he fell, they stood on him" I honestly have no idea what that means. he then was in the car driving home with his bag of new groceries that he got because he returned food.
in chapter two vladek goes to a psychiatrist on page 203 panel 4. where The psychiatrist questions the point about all of the books written about the Holocaust since people haven't changed. He even suggests that people may need a bigger, newer Holocaust. I feel like he questions the point of all the books because of people don't change like they will just complain about things without actually doing something about it? and then he says that I might need a newer and bigger holocaust. maybe to prove a point? I'm not sure but it made me laugh because in a tv show called the office there was a part where Dwight Schrute said "there's too many people on this earth. we need a new plague" so to wrap up the question I don't know. in the begging of this chapter, it showed art sitting in a chair on a pile of dead bodies presumably Jews. there he just lists off events and dates from the past and the present on page 201 on panels 1-4. and here he is shown as a regular human just with a mouse mask on. and there are other people out there too. there are cat masks, dog masks. what I have noticed is that there are many different types of dog masks. this could stand for different religions but we stay as dogs because we are American. when he goes to see his psychiatrist he is the size of a child showing that he feels like one. also in the holocaust, there are cremations and cremation pits. if I had to pick one I'm not sure which one I could do, to be honest. both seem to be a slow death. the cremation pits you get checked into a ditch and if you are living you get thrown down there too and then you get gasoline poured onto you then you get set on fire. and in the gas chamber, you just suffocate then they burn your bodies. so yeah no I don't want either of them.
wow, im on book two. it has been a long gurney. the first question is "What does Art think about his relationship with his father and his attempt to write the book?" And to answer this question I will say that art thinks that his relationship with his dad isn't that great but he still loves him very much. the second question is "Why might Spiegelman start Book two in this way?" I think that he started this book like that because its shows struggle and it links it to current events. not that other things that happened in the book weren't current it just felt more realistic if that make sense. like it wasn't scripted. as it says in panel 6 page 174 art can't even make sense of his relationship with his father so he doesn't feel like he could make any sense of the holocaust and feels like he bit off more than he can chew as he says on page 176 panel 5. art feels like the holocaust might be too complex for a comic to handle and for it to even work there are so many things that get left out or distorted. as he says in the next panel. Francoise comments, "Maybe Auschwitz made him like that." on page 182 panel 6. but art doesn't think that's the case, because he replies saying " maybe, but lots of the people up here are survivors...if they're whacked up it's in a different way from vladek" i think it messed him up a bit but most of the things that he does is just what old people do. on page 188 there is a priest that comes to talk to vladek on panels 3-10. where he says that his number is a very good and that he will make it out alive from this place.
Art calls his father a murderer because he destroyed all of his wife's stuff because she was dead and it held too many memories. I think he called him a murderer just because he was mad and that he "killed" Anja's memories .Vladek says that reading Artie's comic makes him "interested" in his own story (p. 135)? Is this statement just a product of broken English, or does it reveal some deeper truth about what happens when we record our personal histories? I don't know, to be honest. On page 138 Vladek says that he was able to pass for a member of the Gestapo but that Anja's appearance was more Jewish. Anja's tail was hanging out. Given the fact that the Spiegelman's are "mice," the significance of the panels on page 147, in which Vladek and Anja's hiding place turns out to be infested with rats is that they are the same? Why might the author have portrayed this incident? because he can. On page 149 Vladek is almost betrayed by a group of schoolchildren. poles told stories to their kids that jews will take them and eat them or something so now they are scared and stay away from jews. Vladek wants to flee to Hungary because it is said to be safer there. He and Anja then go but only to find out that the whole thing was a trap. they got on the train and then the came from them and shipped them off where they wait to die. the fact that they got a letter saying everything was ok there says that he was in on this too or the nazis sent it or something like that.
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AuthorMy name is Skye Austin. I have dyslexia and ADHD... go away... Archives
June 2017
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