Spiegelman Case

Week 5: After reading The Complete Maus, by Art Spiegelman, please write in response to ONE of the following questions.

1. How/why is the relationship between Art and Vladek critical to the narrative and to Art's sense of identity?.

Father and son relationships convey a lot about how characteristics in fathers affect the identity of their children. Everywhere in the world, men are taught by their fathers that it is incredibly important to succeed, and how one must live up to the expectations of others. The relationship between Art and Vladek provides a new level of insight as to how a father neglecting their child shapes a son's identity in MAUS. Art who lives under the shadow of his dead brother's spirit wants nothing more but to feel wanted by Vladek. We see in the beginning when Art starts a project with his father there is very little understanding and communication between the two of them. We see the longing of Art wanting to be good enough even though they two don't have a relationship and are strangers to one another.

Art must prove himself over and over again in order to get the attention and approval of the great father. As every task goes by Art feels unsure of his fathers' love and at the same time he starts to feel neglected and belittled. Although it may start badly, the failures work out as incentives to do better when a real challenge presents itself. We see Vladek's intention as being suitable to the olden ways where a father wants to see his child grow up as a mini him. With this in mind, the story shows Art characterizing his own identity to be a stronger child.

Art has trouble understanding what his father went through and how he was affected, and Vladek has trouble understanding that his son is living in a new age, away from the Holocaust and his terrible past. For Art this turns into enormous guilt. The simplest form of guilt in Maus is Art's guilt over the fact that he thinks he is not/has not been a good enough son to Vladek. This is where I raise the question- how can you live up to a war hero when there is no guidance? Also, both Artie and his father share the similarity of feeling guilty to be alive in a world when so many others perished, yet their failure to communicate this to each other results in lasting damage to their relationship. As a result, creating distance becomes inevitable and in the cases of both men, this relationship often manifests itself as guilt. For Art, dealing with the distance of his father makes him grow as a person by writing MAUS and taking his father's life into consideration.

In the end, Art's father shaped his identity by having him only rely on himself to find his inner strength to go above and beyond what is imaginable. Although in MAUS there seems to be no happy ending and Art shows the feeling of being trapped, Vladek clearly shows the audience in a subtle way that he truly does love his son immensely, but is just shaping his son to be better and does everything for him. One must understand how important fathers' characteristics shape a sons' identity in MAUS

Week 6: Your response for this week should examine the relationship(s) between Persepolis and Maus. Please write in response to ONE of the following questions:

1.​Compare the graphic styles of the books and explain how their visual styles complement their respective themes and narratives.

​As you can tell by the first few pages, BOTH Satrapi and Artie draw in only black and white, often only six to eight panels on a page. This style is meant to represent a naive understanding of the world, since both novels depict a little or a lit of childhood. The texts and images could not be simpler or more to the truth. Without color through out the entire book, we see that black and white symbolizes how the Islamic revolution left the people of Iran soulless, not having its rich colorful cultural history, and taking the freedom of expression. Also, symbolizing the torture and how literally the life