Thoughts?

 Recently, I just finished reading MAUS (part 1 and 2) in my English class. It is a good book that represents history by drawing humans as animals. The book is a comic that uses pictures to convey a number of deep motifs and meanings to the reader. Today, I am going to analyze some of the images of MAUS that have a hidden deep meaning. One of the major motifs is being stuck in the past. It is shown in multiple places throughout the book. One of such places is on page 116 of Volume 2. The page is shown on the right. In the immediate context, Vladek was showing Artie the pictures of his family before the holocaust. In this page, Vladek is drawn in multiple panels throughout the page. The separation of the different parts of his body shows that he is stuck in the different moments of the past on the same time. He is remembering his different family members at same time, and thus his drawing in different panels represents that. There are also other pages on which the motif of being st...

  From Maus I by Art Spiegelman      This is a panel (page 125) from Maus by Art Spiegelman and it reveals a lot. In the direct context, Vladek (Narrator's Father) was stuck in a ghetto. Germans were transporting Jews from there, but Vladek managed to hide and survive. After the whole ghetto was emptied, Vladek and his wife Anja left the ghetto.     When we look the picture carefully, the road that Vladek and Anja are travelling on is representing the Swastika symbol of the Nazis. The road is completely white and clear, but the surroundings are lined (which represent the lined clothes of jews in the concentration camps). Also, the ends of the road eventually get into the lined part as well, especially in the top end of the road.     The drawing is very detailed and is a foreshadow of future of the characters. Vladek and Anja are walking on a swastika shaped road; they are within the range the Nazis (Spiegelman shows that by making t...