Well hello everyone! I seriously feel like it's been forever since we've had to post a blog so excuse me if this one is a bit rusty. In this blog posting we are supposed to find an article on the graphic novel we just finished reading, Maus part 2 and summarize what the article was about. I chose an article titled, Art Spiegelman's Maus: An Analysis of Honesty and Imperfection by Stacy Affleck. I found this article quite interesting and I really enjoyed reading it because it made me realize something about the novel that I didn't recognize on my own. This article really stresses the idea that this novel is a way of portraying the fact that humans are imperfect no matter what horrific episodes they have survived they are still human and are still flawed. Stacy Affleck pointed out that Maus is very different than any of the other novels and stories written on the holocaust. The main reason why Maus is so different besides the fact that it’s a cartoon is the fact that Art Spiegelman doesn’t necessarily portray the survivors of the war to be these perfect heroes that can survive anything but simply humans who are people just like us. Affleck talks about how Spiegelman really shows how raw the connections were between the Jewish prisoners in the camps. One way Spiegalman does this is by showing readers how his father, Vladeck was so eager and willing to put himself before anyone else and how he did anything he could to survive even if it costs other prisoners their life or sometimes worse, their suffering. By showing this aspect of the prison camps and the prisoners inside them Art Spiegelman really illustrated how the connection between prisoners became inhuman not because they were bad people but because in the situation they were put in they really had no other choice but to act like that. Affleck’s article really points out the fact that Maus is a very honest illustration of the Holocaust and that it portrays the survivors of the Holocaust not as these perfect heroes but as what they really are, humans.
http://www.suite101.com/content/an-analysis-of-honesty-and-imperfection-in-art-spiegelmans-maus-a323850
