Every year in school we seem to always be reminded about the Holocaust. We hear the stories of the prison camps and how Jews were captured and killed there. We again come to the same conclusion that you can never understand the holocaust without actually being there. It’s hard to put into words to describe it. Therefore, in Maus 2 Art Spiegelman writes his novel as a comic because of the fact that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Critics say this gives the literature a more positive quality. The portrayal of humans in the book, are taken place by animals. The two main animals are cats, played Nazis, and mice played Jews. These two animals are natural enemies so, it was only right that the cats(Nazis) would not think twice about killing mice(Jews). It is also said that the Nazis called the Jews the “vermin of society”. This may have added to the reason why Art chose to portray the Jews as mice. Furthermore, portraying the people as animals would rid the reader of any preconceived notions of human nature. People may take it hard to except a novel when it is written as a comic book. People think it is not a great way to write a fine piece of literature. In Spiegelman’s case it works very well because it gets the reader’s attention and it give them another perspective to think about. It does not make them think about the Jews perspective, but now it makes them think like a mice or cat. It compares the Jews as mice, so it makes them seam that they are the “rats” of the world. The Nazis are the higher intellects of the world. They are the pure breed that they want the rest of the world to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment