Images

History is a subject that all mankind should at least embrace in one way or another. I am fortunate that I have taken this English class and learned of events that have taken place far beyond my expectainons. A different tool was used. I’m talking about the book “Maus”. It’s not a text book but a comic book . It’s very different from what I’m used to reading. I have to admit that I found it quite hard to jump in and start reading. I guess you can say I had to train my brain to read this comic book. The events in this comic are real. I can just imagine the struggle and pain that the Jews went through. I found myself emergied in the reading and could not put it down. It turns out that I liked this type of format for reading and the drawings are great.

The drawings in this comic so far of what I have seen, have been drawn very well. I like for instance, that since the comic is black and white that the characters have been drawn as different animals, according to what Art has placed them as. The Jews are mice, the Germans cats, the Polish are pigs, the French are frogs, the Americans are dogs. What made me kind of laugh that in volume II in chapter 3 towards the end of the chapter when Francoise picked up a hitch-hiker is that Vladek kind of turned the role of being a racist. The hitch-hiker was a black dog, and of course Vladek called him a colored guy so you know what that ment. You can say that you saw a diifernet side of Vladek at this point.

I would like to mention that the images are also graphic. I say graphic because some of them are even hard to look at. I can just imagine if he drew them this way that in reality it must have been worse. The image that hurt the pit of my stomach is on page 72 at the bottom of the page. The burning of the dead and live bodies .I just can’t imagine it happening but then I realize that it’s a fact that I did happen and I wonder how can someone do this to another. The madness and chaos that are shown in the images I believe help us not to repeat these death camps.

Even though this is not a text book but a biography of a life of survival I feel myselef getting more information than I would a text book. I feel that I am watching a movie when I read this comic. The flow has become very easy to read and at the same time it is teaching me. The reason why I say a movie but what I do mean is a cartoon. I can picture it as if I were watching t.v. That’s how second nature it has become. History can give a person so much. Past events sometimes present events we all need to know what is going on in our country and others as well.