Maus chapter 5
Through the book we have been seeing recollections of Vladek’s trauma and how it has evolved into generational trauma that seeps into Artie’s life. On countless occasions we see actions Vladek does, and symbols around him that allude to him surviving the troubling time of World War II, and how even to this day he can’t shake this off. An example of this is when Vladek picks up a broken telephone wire while Arite comments “You always pick up junk” (116). Spiegelman purposely does this to allude to the trauma Vladek had to adopt during his time hiding from the Nazis. While this scene happens, just a few pages back we see Vladek hiding from the nazis while practically starving to death. His time during the war forced him to adopt this trauma that he can’t ever shake off. Similarly, we can see Vladek working with nails and other objects in the garage (98) keeping it organized because “It’s always something here I must do”. We see him constantly trying to fix the house to keep himself busy because he had to build countless bunkers in houses to hide from the nazis. For an example when he built a bunker to hide Anja’s grandparents (86), or when he built a coal bunker so the nazi dogs couldn’t even sniff him out (110), and an attic bunker (112). Throughout his life he had to use his hands to d physical jobs, to ether escape from the nazis or when he was enslaved by them and forced to do labor like resoling German boots (117). However, this trauma spread to Artie which can be shown through the comic Artie wrote, the “Prisoner on the HELL planet” (100-104). Artie is wearing striped cloths (alluding to the cloths Jews wore at Auschwitz) and he seems to be mentally ill. The way his face is depicted, he’s in jail and most importantly a Hitler like figure chants “SHE’S DEAD! A SUICIDE” (101) haunting Artie because his mother most likely killed herself because of the trauma she felt during the war (122). The trauma of the war.
He kinda has a Hitler mustache
I like how you talked a lot about how Vladek’s experiences changed his personalities and caused him to act the way he does now, such as him being a lot more resourceful in utilizing small things like the wire. I also thought it was interesting and funny how you said the guy in the comic looks like Hitler and how you said “he kinda has a Hitler mustache.”
ReplyDeleteI also talked about generational trauma and I liked reading about how you connected your set of panels to the issue. I think that the panels you chose represent the issue really well.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you correlated the actions of Vladek to potential reasons why he might exhibit such behavior. Therefore, you did a really good job connecting his behavior to his potential trauma derived from his experiences/the war. I also liked that you included the comic that was within the comic itself.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you connected the sharp imagery of Artie's striped clothing to prison. I feel like the motif of stripes in the story is an important factor and cause of the trauma the Spiegelman family feels.
ReplyDelete