Week Seven

Maus is graphic novel that depicts one of the most horrifying events in human history.    Reading Maus was engaging, sad, and intense. It was a good depiction of what life was like before the Holocaust and about the rise of Nazism in Germany.

            What made Maus engaging was the imagery.  Even though the characters are cats and mice, it’s very convincing, in how it depicts Jewish life and culture in Poland during this time. The mice are drawn so well that they seem human. When it shows Vladek as a young man, there is charm to his love life with women he dates, and with Anja, the woman he ends up marrying Anja and Vladek’s relationship was engaging because it depicts two people who really loved each other.  But there are also things about the characters’ personal lives that are sad, such as the time when Anja becomes depressed and hysterical about her life after the death of her child.  As a reader I really grasped her depression. This makes the characters real.  It would have been easy for the author to show life before the Nazis as being all happy, but instead, he shows ordinary life as it really is.

            But Maus is about a tragedy that goes beyond the limits of ordinary life.  One specific frame that had a big effect on me is the one in which Vladek and his family are looking out a window and see the Nazi flag with the swastika being raised.  This frame gave me a sense of tension and horror because I can imagine what it must have been like to see such a major symbol of the hatred and genocide that is taking over your country., European Jews did not knowing what was coming to them before it all suddenly happened.  They must have felt that something strange as horrible was happening, and that there was nothing they could do about it. This reminds me of the shock I felt when Donald Trump became President of the United States.  Trump campaigned on the basis of racism, xenophobia, and hatred, which has led to a rise in hate crimes, white supremacy protests, and a meaner America.  So in a sense, Trump and Hitler used the same tactic to gain power, as reasonable and good people watched in horror. 

            In conclusion, Maus can relate to America today.  The situation is not as extreme as Nazi Germany, but it is very serious. Maus is a horrifying graphic novel that I think could be used as an educational tool to teach people about the rise of fear-mongers and even genocides. Maybe reading it now can help people understand the danger of someone like Trump and what we all need to do to stop him. 
             


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