Week 7

I really enjoyed this story. I like the use of symbolism with the concept of the Jewish people being mice and Germans being cats. I think that for a lot of people, holocaust stories are difficult to make it through, however the use of animals and comics allow the subject matter to be stomached more easily. I think whats great about the comic is that although it is a cartoon, its just cartoon enough to do what I just mentioned but it also does not take away from the seriousness.I think that putting a holocaust story/account in this typeof medium is very different and makes this kind of story available to an even broader audience who might not be as interested in a regular novel account. I enjoyed that he basically took every moment of the story from his own life, conversations, moments, etc. These sort of real life experiences allow people to connect well with the novel because its very raw and relatable and honest. This is observable in the very first few moments in the comic, the part where Vladek gets annoyed at Mala for not giving his son a wooden hanger. This is such a specific moment, another person who wasn't writing from experience would have written something more generalized like "you don't offer to put his coat up", but the fact that he has a particular hanger in which he would like his sons coat to be hung up is telling how directly this is being told. I think the medium and th sway it is handled also allows the story being told to be incredibly raw without making the reader uncomfortable. At one point he inserts a comic about his mothers suicide in the story, reading this I felt a very different reaction. At first I felt uncomfortable because of the subject matter, but the way it was depicted made me feel very averse to it. The images handled to be too dark/real/unappealing, especially seeing them depicted as humans. I felt more uncomfortable than sympathetic, almost averse to it. So I once again really appreciated the subject matter of the camps and ect. being handled through the use of characters that symbolized the positions his parents and family members were instead. At the end of the day it depends on his goal for what he wants the reader to feel, did he depict that comic in that way to make the reader uncomfortable or was it simply just a comic for his own emotions to be expressed. I think the goal was clearer in Maus because he wants people to learn about what happened to his parents, his own troubles, and etc. Additionally, I'm glad a subject like this allowed for academics and those outside of the field take the field of comics more seriously or recognize their potential to be educational and thought provoking.