Jordan had some trouble posting, hence the late post:
Chapter one gave us some background of the life of Artie's
father (Vladek). What do you think of how the characters were introduced to us?
What purpose did Chapter one have for us as readers?
Chapter two, what do you think of the way the story is being
told? The characters are all animals and
it is told through the perspective of Artie. What do you think the purpose of
this is? Also, what do you think of the story and how it is tackled in chapter
2.
Finally, Chapter 3 gives us more incite to Vladek's life.
Which wraps up my section, but what do you think of the story so far? I really
enjoy the art style of this comic, the black and white fits really nicely with
the tone of the comic and I feel I binge read through the reading and did not
realize how far I was and ended up finishing the comic. I feel that the comic
style really helped the story and I definitely enjoyed reading it as a comic.
The characters were all solid and I feel it helped the story more as a comic.
I feel like chapter one was setting the "tone" of the story along with getting to know Vladek as an individual before he was thrown into the war. I loved the personality he has as an older man narrating his life, and the personality portrayed as him as a young man.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter two things start to get more serious. I don't feel like they are animals even though they are being portrayed as them, it is kind of a weird feeling. I am satisfied with the way the story is given to us. Through the obstacles that Vladek's marriage went through along with being thrown into the war, I think it was done elegantly. I did find it confusing and unnecessary when he included all the random rambling of older Vladek. However, that is kind of the charm of his character and this book.
I had the same experience! I started just binging on this book and hadn't realized how far I got! I find that a good sign :) I think the font and type could be improved because it is difficult to read with the thick lines of the drawings and the thick line of text- it kind of gets jumbled together. I think the comic style definitely is a perk for this story and gives it some sort of relief.
ReplyDeleteChapter 1 ends with Art breaking his promise to Vladek, which is a strange thing to communicate. Spiegelman, as author, creates a character, Art, who is also our narrator. That must be the simplest formation, but those two Art’s wreck havoc on my creation of an authorial persona. Spiegelman keeps trying to slip in some more information. I get one reading from reading Maus like any work that doesn’t involve the author and narrator in an unusual way and then another from a reading that is interested in what I think Spiegelman thinks about himself and how that might manifest in Art.
I was thinking how I'd do a movie version of Maus and I ran into some problems, particularly with the bottom panel on page 38. Spiegelman is still our author – he’s does an interesting job with the panel lay out to visually communicate Anja and Vladek’s different paths. Art was our narrator, but we’re getting Vladek’s story told with “I” which adds another membrane to complicate the narrative osmosis. All those guys marching by the tank aren’t guys at all, they’re pigs, and one of them is possibly Vladek. If I was directing that scene and one of my actors didn’t show up after lunch, I’d know who it was. I’d be able to differentiate between subjects, something that can’t be done with the provided art. In my reading this time I’m not concerned with the characters as animals as much as I’m concerned that the characters are largely unidentifiable from other characters of their species – this complicates their individualism and in a tale where a lot of stuff goes wrong and discernable individuals are hard to come by, the question of responsibility gets sticky.
Chapter one acted as an introduction. It allowed the viewers to take in the characters and settings without getting to heavy material right off the bat. The characters introduced are very likable, you can’t help relate to both Artie and Vladek. Plus, there relationship is very believable.
ReplyDeleteThe story takes a turn for the worse in chapter two, and you get to see the darker elements behind the scenes. Honestly can’t tell you why all the characters are animals, I thought at first it would play a bigger role, but it really doesn’t seem to. Its pretty weird and definitely symbolic, especially the scene were Vladak has the pig mask in chapter 3.
This is definitely the type of book that you pick up and can’t put back down. I think most of this can be attributed to the story and the characters; we want to know what happens, and if they’ll be all right. We know bad things happen but were not sure how they’ll play out. I like the artwork and I think it compliments Spiegleman’s more serious writing style. Probably gonna finish it as soon as I'm done writing this.
I really liked how chapter one shaped the relationship between Vladek and Anja it gave a back story and it helped make them people rather than victims of a terrible crime in history. I felt like it allowed the reader to ease themselves into the story better by avoiding the heavy hitting content right off the bat.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated that the story was told through the eyes or artie, it turned the story into a comic about the relationship with his father who had been through the holocaust opposed to a holocaust story, if that makes sense. By taking a step back and watching a father and son interact you get a larger picture of the lives they lived.
I felt that this comic was written incredibly well for the medium, I cannot wait to read the next one. the black and white images were stark like the content but easy to follow and I was excited to keep turning pages.
Chapter One gave a good amount of backstory and helped introduce the characters. It helped me to understand a bit more about Vladek and Artie's relationship as father and son, and how that was going to play out within the story. It established their bond and gave us background on their relationship. By Artie asking a variety of questions to Vladek, such as how he met his mother, it acts as a buffer for the audience to get to know Vladek as well, and gives us more insight to the story.
ReplyDeleteI think Artie is definitely the protagonist of the story, and therefore it's no surprise to me that he was the one narrating Chapter Two. I think Artie's view is integral, as Vladek is aging rapidly (which we can tell by the fact that he is popping so many pills ), and therefore could be considered an unreliable narrator... yet we as readers, along with Artie, rely on Vladek to share his stories about him and Anja.
I surprisingly enjoyed the comic. I took this class knowing it wasn't my favorite medium for stories, but have found myself pleasantly surprised, especially by how much easier they are to read. Rather than boring dialogue with paragraphs full of "he said she saids", you can just see who is saying what and move through the story at a faster pace.
The first chapter does its job well of giving some context and background info, such as character relationships and motive for telling this narrative.
ReplyDeleteUsing animals as characters allows us to take a step back from the history that we have already been taught countless times (or at least that was my high school experience). This creates a memorable way for the readers to experience the story, plus the characteristics the animals usually have contribute to the undertones that the character's interactions have (ie. cat and mouse discourse).
Since I have been taught about the holocaust practically every year in high school, this lends a new experience that I am already way more interested in.