Midterm Instructions--DUE MARCH 4

General Directions: Write a 6-7 page paper addressing one of the following.  Below, please find a number of questions focusing on the works we’ve read during the first half of the term.  It’s important that your readings from Scott McCloud factor into your essay.  Use the terminology McCloud introduces in Understanding Comics to unpack the particularities of the text you choose to explore.  You may also want to use scanned or photocopied images to support your argument.  These images will be in addition to the 6 page minimum, rather than a part of the 6 pages. We can discuss how to “quote” from images. If you would like to use other theoretical sources on comics, I can help you find them.

Some general guidelines:

Handing in your paper late will lower your grade. As a rule, it is good to avoid using the first person in a formal paper.  Be certain to use spelling and grammar check on your computer; I am expecting that I will not have to focus unduly on this aspect of your writing when grading your work.  Back up your arguments with quotes from the reading and properly cite these quotes in MLA format.  If you have questions about citation practice, there are a number of online resources that can help you and I am happy to give you input, as well.  If you wish to work on a topic not listed below, just make sure to discuss it with me before beginning the work so we ensure it is narrow enough to fit within such a short paper.  I would be pleased to meet with you over the course of the next weeks to discuss your midterm paper if it would be helpful. Do not plagiarize! I am expecting that you won’t, but, if you do, it results in an automatic “F.”

Maus:

1. History, both global and personal, plays a large role in Maus. What is the relationship between personal history and global history in this text? How does Spiegelman balance narration of personal history and larger world historical events? How is the loss of his mother’s diary used as a thread to connect these two forms of history? How do the different genres evident in Spiegelman’s text – testimony, oral narrative, maps – work to do the same? Using specific examples, talk about how Spiegelman’s narrative choice to interweave losses both personal and large-scale works in Maus.

2. We mentioned in our discussion online that artists who wish to represent the Holocaust and the havoc it wreaked on its victims and survivors have a daunting task.  How does Spiegelman’s choice to represent the Holocaust in the form of a graphic novel allow him to address/ not address these questions of representation? Does the pictorial form of the graphic novel provide Spiegelman with a way of meditating on questions of representation? If so, how? Give specific examples and explain how they link to the larger issues surrounding representation of trauma.

3. Framing devices are very important to how we read and understand Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Most significant of the framing devices in the text is Art’s relationship with Vladek, which structures how we, as readers, interpret the novel, comprised as it is of testimony he collects from his aging Holocaust survivor father.  Keeping the importance of framing devices in Spiegelman’s work in mind, what do you make of the epigraphs that begin each volume of Maus? How do they work to introduce and structure our reading of the text? How do they create or disrupt continuity between the volumes? Use Spiegelman’s epigraphs to explore Maus and the role of framing in the text.

4. Art Spiegelman’s choice to portray the conflict between Nazi and Jew in World War II era Europe as a battle between cat and mouse drew much attention when Maus was published.  How does Spiegelman’s use of animals to represent national or ethnic types work in Maus?  Use close readings of a few scenes in the text to explain how Spiegelman’s animal characters allow him to comment on the historical circumstances of the war and the place of racial-thinking in it.

Persepolis:

1.      1. Both Maus and Persepolis are memoirs written in graphic narrative form.  However, Spiegelman and Satrapi’s narratives differ in key ways.  How does Satrapi’s choice to frame the story of the Islamic Revolution in Iran through the eyes of a child affect your reading of her story?  How does this choice contrast with Spiegelman’s more cynical, by-proxy narrative of the Holocaust?  How do Spiegelman and Satrapi use imagery differently/ similarly?

2.      2. Satrapi’s Persepolis proves unique in the comics genre because it is centered on the viewpoint of a female child and, later, young woman.  How does gender factor into your experience of Persepolis?  Does Satrapi suggest something about the ways in which revolutions affect women in particular? How does Satrapi’s focus on female experience challenge our idea about the conventions of comics?

3.      3. Persepolis is very much a narrative about place and the role it plays in the formation of identity.  The characters in Satrapi’s memoir struggle to stay in a chaotic homeland or deal with the complexities of exile.  How does Satrapi use the physical space of the comic to comment on the power of geography during a period of social tumult?

     American Born Chinese

    1. As we discussed on the blog, the history of caricature and comics are intertwined.  How does Yang use caricature and offensive stereotype in American Born Chinese?  What visual and narrative choices does he make that demonstrate to us as readers that he is trying to undermine stereotype? 

2   2.  Yang combines folklore with more realistic, contemporary narrative, as well as sitcom-style storytelling in his book. He also combines Eastern and Western religion in American Born Chinese. What sort of story about culture do these cross-pollinations tell?  How do they complicate or extend the immigrant stories we normally hear?

Comics Formal Discussion Post

So far, the two graphic narratives we've read in class have been powerful memoirs--1st-person stories of violence and loss.   Given what we remember from McCloud, particularly his assertion that comics artists encourage reader identification through their use of icons, the gutter, and closure, can we say that comics are a medium particularly appropriate for telling first-person stories?  What do you think?

For more on comics and the first-person, check out:

 this book on comics, gender, and first-person storytelling

or this great article on the "I" and comics 

 

Also, both Maus and Persepolis are deeply concerned with the nature of violence and how to depict it in visual form. Compare and contrast some of Spiegelman and Satrapi's choices when it comes to depicting violence.  Describe some scenes of violence in the two works and how the choices these artists made affected your experience of reading the texts and your sense of the conflicts they were illustrating.

Interview with Marjane Satrapi and brief history of Iran

In addition to my podcast, check out some more background on Persepolis: This interview with Satrapi

and this video background and this video background on Iran and the Islamic Revolution period in its history.

Do you feel that the documentaries are biased given Satrapi's depiction of the Revolution? 

Persepolis podcast from Profesor Glaser

Here's a podcast I created about _Persepolis_, the book we are currently reading.

Ashley's Discussion Post

Ashley was having difficulty posting. Here is her post!

Spiegelman portrays every race/occupation as a different animal. I found it interesting that he chose a frog for the french, a dog for the doctors. I am wondering what everyones opinion in this is? What do you feel the symbolism is that is hidden behind these animals? Throughout the story Spiegelman makes references of animals, specifically when he compared a dying dog to a dying human mentioning that everyone and everything dies the same. Do you feel as though that was some sort of hint at his choice for animals?

In Maus II, there is less actual story telling of the Holocaust and more story telling of the authors relationship with his family. Why do you think this is? In some way this is a self reflection on not only the author himself but also his father especially.

Finally, thoughts on Mala? Valued was so in love with Anja- why did he feel the need to remarry? Nevertheless someone like Mala? Why do you think Anja killed herself? She seemed to find her strength in Vladek who loved her very much it puzzles me.

What is a Meta-Biography?

                                                                   Meta-Grover

Maus is often referred to as a meta-text or meta-biography. What does this mean? "Meta" means "about" in Greek--and, in the case of literature, it refers to self-referential texts--books about books, books that draw attention to the conditions of their own production, that break down the wall between writer and reader.  Metafictional techniques are characteristic of the aesthetic movement of "postmodernism." Many postmodern authors, such as Spiegelman, draw attention to the fact that their works are not direct representations of reality by slyly nodding to the reader. Can you name some ways in which Maus is a meta-text?

Examples of meta-texts in other media include the television show The Office and many of Charlie Kaufman's films (think Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, etc.).

Prisoner On The Hell Planet

 One of the interesting aspects of Spiegelman's work is his insertion of other texts into the main body of Maus. Halfway through Book I, we are greeted by the tragic story of Art's mother's suicide. What do you make of this comic? Why do you think Spiegelman includes it in Maus, given that it breaks the continuity of his use of animals in the rest of the work? How did it affect you as a reader?

In this section of the book, Spiegelman's drawing style is extremely exaggerated in a manner that reflects the strong emotions he is evoking in Anja's death and his own reaction to it. The elongated faces, stark palette, and dramatic linework are reminiscent of the Expressionist school of art, such as Edvard Munch's famous work, "The Scream." Expressionist artists attempted to represent extreme emotions, imagining that one could exteriorize deep inner states.

How does this art style depart from Spiegelman's art in the rest of Maus? How does it help us to see the importance of his mother's story--and the loss of her diaries--to the rest of the narrative?