Unexpectedly Satisfying

I have about an average amount of Holocaust knowledge. I've seen a few movies, and I've been to Auschwitz. I probably also have average graphic novel experience. I've never read comic books, but I have perused my fair share of Sunday funnies and scientific adventures chronicled in children's magazines. So I had average expectations going into Maus. Now, I am leaving it with a more than average satisfaction.

In my opinion, choosing this form and depicting the characters as animals was a brilliant idea. By personifying mice, cats, and pigs, Spiegelman managed to actually "personify" people. It is one thing to read a history text or statistics, but it is quite another to see a very personal story played out on one hundred pages of comics. I found the characters to be very relatable due to their quick bursts of dialogue and the modern context in which the character Spiegelman is uncovering his father's story. Like we mentioned in class, people think in short bursts, not long paragraphs. Even reactions such as "gasp!" have slipped into our everyday speech, as dialogue, and no longer as actions.

Even though Spiegelman has drawn people as animals, the characters are definitely human. We can imagine that Auschwitz survivors took advantage of their freedom by sleeping in and treating themselves to the good things in life. We can also assume that their friends and relatives always treated them like superheroes. The truth is, these survivors and their families are still humans, despite, and because of, the horrors they experiences. Spiegelman's father, Vladek, gets up super early and is constantly busy.

Vladek: I'll get you there anything you want fo the week to eat...turkey legs, fish, whatever you want.
Art: We don't want much. We'll be leaving in a day or so anyway.
Vladek: Leaving! But you only just came! I planned you to spend with me 'til the end of the summer.
Art: We told you it was just for a few days to be sure you'd be okay alone up here.
Vladek: Sigh. Then better if you didn't come, now I got used a little to having you together by me.
Art: Bah!

I thoroughly enjoyed the exchanges between Spiegelman and his father; they are exactly the way any father-son relationship realistically would be. This passage illustrates that what Vladek really wants after all he's been through in life is to be with his loved ones. It also clearly shows how irritating and manipulating an old man he can be. In addition to characterizing a credible person to whom many can relate, Spiegelman neatly ties Vladek's quirks back to his experiences in Auschwitz. And despite this heavy subject matter, Spiegelman infuses smatterings of humor quite effortlessly into the text. A depressing and inappropriately funny moment occurs when Vladek tries to pawn off some leftover cereal onto his son, who says he should just throw it away.

Vladek: Ever since Hitler, I don't like to throw out even a crumb.
Art: Then just save the damn Special K in case Hitler ever comes back!

Perhaps part of the reason I enjoyed this book, and part of the reason that enjoyment surprised me, is my own personal lens. Just having been to Auschwitz a few months ago, and becoming close friends with a Polish girl while abroad last year, the location descriptions put me right back there, and Vladek's accent was particularly endearing. On the other hand, my grandmother is German, and was a little girl during WWII. She had little to eat and witnessed her neighbors being burned alive from the destruction wreaked in her small town by the Allies. I am one of those people who becomes very annoyed when it is implied that all Germans from the beginning of time until eternity are evil Nazis. It should go without saying that obviously I find the Holocaust horrific and a completely devasting and unnecessary event, but it has always been a particularly touchy topic for me because of the other stories that get overlooked. Mention Hitler to someone and watch their face screw up in immediate rage; ask them about the Katyn Massacre and they will probably stare at you blankly. (In the winter of 1939-40, the Soviets secretly murdered hundreds of Polish officers deep in a forest, one shot after another, and then blamed the Germans for decades.) The constant bombardment of guilt and the vast number of Holocaust memorials lose their effect after a while; seeing this individual story in Maus brought me back to the realness of what happened.

This entire semester has taken me by surprise. It's not just the sneaky rapidity with which the time has flown, but almost more how truly interesting all my classes have turned out to be. This class in particular has been an unexpectedly engaging and enlightening experience, and reading Spiegelman's Maus II was as well.

Maus Analysis and Surprising Thing

Part III Analysis: Maus II raises the question of whether a person can truly understand something they themselves are or were not a part of and how best to go about gaining this understanding. Art struggles to understand what his father Vladek, a Holocaust survivor, experienced and how that has shaped who is. He wants to listen to his father’s stories and turn them into a novel but he becomes concerned that he cannot accurately portray it since he wasn’t there. The littlest details, like how to draw the tools in the tin shop, frustrate Art and make him question the validity of his work. Spiegelman suggests that it difficult to imagine the horrors of the Holocaust if one didn’t experience them. At one point Francoise says, “Sigh. It’s so peaceful here at night. It’s almost impossible to believe that Auschwitz even happened.” Art responds, “Uh-huh. Ouch! But these damn bugs are eating me alive (74). The flies that are attacking Art are the same ones portrayed hovering around the dead bodies and make it seem like the Holocaust is nagging at Art and he is beginning to understand it.

By having the novel jump from the Holocaust to Art’s discussions with Vladek and take the form of storytelling, Spiegelman seems to be suggesting that storytelling is a form of travel that allows one to understand someone else’s experiences. As the novel goes on, Art becomes continually more anxious to hear his father’s stories urging him to continue talking even though he didn’t want to visit him in the first place. By writing Maus II, Art uses storytelling to help the reader better understand the Holocaust too, and he enhances the power of the story by adding the illustrations and using the form of graphic as opposed to traditional novel. The mouse form of Art seems to experience an internal journey by hearing the story about Vladek’s external one, and in turn the reader is invited on this travel as well by reading the book that the mouse Art is writing in the story. Overall, Maus II seems to serve the dual purpose of inviting the reader to journey into and experience the Holocaust and informing the reader that it is in fact possible to travel and grow in understanding through storytelling and literature.

Looking back on this semester, I would have to say that the most surprising thing for me has been discovering and appreciating the power of literature. As a biology major, I haven't read all that much literature during college except for my core classes and I've always endured that reading reluctantly. However, the works we read this semester and the discussion we had about them has helped me to understand how much literature can teach us about ourselves and our lives even if on first glance it seems to be about something else entirely. I always took what I read at face value, never taking the time to relate it to my own life, but this class has helped me learn how to do that and through this I've come to a much greater appreciation for literature, so thank you.

Endless Forms of Travel

Art Spiegelman’s Maus II follows the journey of both Art and his father Vladek, the journey of one’s recognition and understanding of a family’s past and of another’s recollection. Although Art, through his graphic novel, recounts the story of Vladek’s incredibly harsh concentration camp experiences, relaying the story of his family’s past to the reader, he also manages to relay his own journey in writing the history, his journey of coming to terms with his emotions for his family and for his father and producing a work that combines both the historical and the emotional. He creates a work that combines multiple different forms of life travel.

While Vladek’s Holocaust journey is the inspiration for Art’s graphic novel, this experience is something that Art cannot easily relate to because it is not his own, he has not been to Auschwitz. The novel may seem to be a way to capture solely his father’s journey, but Art turns it into a work that captures his own writing process and journey of understanding and appreciation. Through the graphics of Art and his father, the graphics that capture the way Art extracts his father’s history, the reader sees that Art is growing and changing as he gathers information and even as he reviews his writing process (and writes the final book). The graphic novel shows the power of writing for the author because he expresses a sense of maturity and feeling towards his father and most importantly towards himself, a person that he is trying to figure out a way of coming to terms with. Art’s strong, intimate writing also shows the power of literature as a shared form of travel, of literature as a developing form for the reader, who gains a new insight and therefore mentally transforms or travels, and for the author.

Maus II, along with the other examples of travel literature that we have read, puts into a clear perspective the idea that travel can present itself in an infinite number of forms, that everything about life is a form of travel. This is the idea about travel that surprised me the most, that it exists everywhere, that every piece of literature can be recognized as a form of travel, even if it does not specifically trace a typical “journey” or profound physical travel; the class could have read any work of literature to recognize the presence of travel. Seeing life and everything about life as millions of separate journeys, as millions of possible ideas for literature, is a great way to put one’s individual experiences into a bigger perspective, a great way to see the beauty and growth in everything we do and think.

Dr. Manhattan and a Mouse, who knew?

Spieglman’s Maus, a fantastic graphic novel, touched me with its depth and symbolism. This book was not first my graphic; my first book being Watchmen. In many ways, Watchmen and Maus make the same argument about human nature. It is a fact that the two graphic novels talk about two completely different events in history; however, together serve as a lens into viewing human nature at its core.
First, how can two graphic novels, one from DC and another from Art Spieglman, be related in anyway? First, both novels intend to show human nature when it is separated from society. Many philosophers such as Thomas Hobbs believe that human nature is evil and it is society that keeps us in check. When the German Gestapo, under Hitler’s command, were gathering Jews and placing them in concentration camps, they were working outside society’s norms and showed the evil that was within them. Spieglman did a great job of illustrating that hatred by first drawing the faces of the Kapos and the Germans with expressions horrific and almost demonic. When the SS troops are ordering Jews around and beating them, you see evil at it’s purest. Watchmen did a great job of illustrating human nature at its worst through nuclear war and the almost imminent destruction of humankind with nuclear wars.
In both novels as well, the authors lay out the ignorance in human nature as well. For instance, Spieglman shows himself not really understand the story of his father and all that he has been through. Even when his father is admitted into the hospital and is then cleared to come home, he is upset and is not happy because he cant stand dealing with him. His father is difficult, but all Spieglman cares about is getting the story for his book and anything that prevents that from happening is annoying him and proving to be difficult. In Watchmen, characters prove to be ignorant to the situation around them. One of the characters Rorschach understands that you cannot compromise even in the face of annihilation; but, other characters can not understand that point. They refuse to adapt the same way Spieglman is unable to adapt to his father. In many ways, his father, despite the terrible event he has gone through, has succeeded while Art has failed. Vladek did a great job of surviving the most horrible event in history, but his son can’t even get by with his demanding father. This illustrates the ignorance that humans have at times and how they cannot fully adapt and evolve in certain aspects of life.
To close out the year, I must say that I have been touched in this class. I had been pushed to limits that I never really thought were completely possible. In a class where the readings were hard and draining (with exceptions of course such as Dr. Ellis’ book no doubt), I was surprised that I came out alive. This is coming from a kid that has made it to round 23 of Nazi Zombies on Call of Duty Black Ops by himself (clearly, no one will get that). But, at the end of the day, I must say, it was a class well taught, and a class that I much appreciated. There were things that did push my out of comfort zone, but we can not become better people, better humans, without being stretched, twisted, tangled, and then stretched again. I want to take the opportunity to end with a quote (Yes, I am stealing the idea from another) from one of my favorite movies, Inglorious Basterds, “Well, if this is it, old boy, I hope you don't mind if I go out speaking the King's” This may be the last class where every single one of us will be together, but it could have been only this class that all of us could grow, learn, and love the fine work we all did together and the beautiful work Dr. Ellis did for us. So, I bid all of you adieu, adieu. But never, ever say goodbye. Goodnight and Good Luck, everyone. This is Anthony Santiago, signing out.

The Infinite Abyss

Art Speigelman’s Maus is the first graphic novel I have ever read. At first glance, I wasn’t sure if Speigelman’s cartoons would be able to portray the tragic events of the Holocaust. However, I was taken by surprise once I read the first page. Unlike any other book this semester, I finished Speigelman’s novel in one sitting. The cartoons coupled with short character dialogue led to an addictive read. As I traveled with Artie through his father heroic tale of survival, I learned that his father’s struggle did not end at the conclusion of World War II. Instead, Vladek’s experience has affected his life and in turn has affected his son’s life forever. It is for this reason I think Speigelman is writing this novel. He encourages readers to remember and reflect on the Holocaust. Although it happened in the past, the Holocaust still affects us all in the present.

Although a tale of sadness, evil and tragedy, Vladek’s journey within the Holocaust has shaped his identity. As Vladek fights with the manager to take back his opened box of Special K or shouts racist slurs at the hitchhiker, a reader can see that Vladek still suffers from his time spent at Auschwitz. Through Speigelman’s portrayal of his father as a flawed figure, a reader cannot help but feel pain for Vladek. It was a tragic event that has shaped Vladek and although he may have survived, Speigelman shows that there were parts of Vladek that died in the Holocaust.

All of travel, whether good or bad, affects who we are as individuals. Although Vladek’s tale is one marked by immense hardship and struggle, it is experience that has shaped him. Over the course of the semester, I wasn’t aware of the impact travel and travel literature can have on individuals. After returning from Italy in April, I never took time to self reflect. It was not until Dr. Ellis encouraged us all to look a little deeper that I began to notice how my travel experience has changed me as a person.

Art Speigelman reflects on his own humanity and begins to understand his father more once he listened to his father’s tale. Just as Speigelman becomes more self aware, I realized that the beauty of travel, even if it is experienced on the pages of a novel, can change you as a person if you allow yourself to change. Over the course of the semester, I stopped reading novels because I had to, and began reading them because I wanted to. Through my reflection at the conclusion of each novel, I learned a little more about myself. For this reason, I think travel literature is valuable on so many levels. First, travel literature allows the reader to enter the mind of the author. Second, it allows the reader to enter the journeys of each individual character. And finally, travel literature allows the reader to take the authors’ and characters’ stories, and apply their travel to their own lives.

It is for this reason I want to thank Dr. Ellis. As a senior, I can say that this was the best English class I have ever taken at Loyola. Every discussion, blog post and novel has helped me learn a little more about myself. It’s kind of ironic, but this class itself was a form of travel. I began unsure of what I would learn, but came out knowing more about myself than I could ever imagine. Rather than looking only at the surface of things, I urge myself to look a little deeper. I’ve also learned that all experiences whether good or bad hold worth and become part of our individual stories.

So, thank you again Dr. Ellis and fellow travel literature students! I'm going to end this post with a quote from one of my favorite movies, Garden State... "Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."

Maus blog post

Maus Blog Post

Emily Barbo

Worth a Thousand Words

This is the first graphic novel we have read in class, and although it is not my first graphic novel, I am continually amazed at the depth of the meaning that can be taken from the combination of words and images in every frame. I think that graphic novels have had a negative connotation to them in the past, but as more have been turned into films there has been a shift in perspective. No longer are graphic novels being considered as content-less comics but as worthy works of literature (and arguably art) that can convey really deep and important messages.

Maus is a great example of a very serious subject matter being portrayed via graphic novel. There are many layers to Spiegelman's story; the relationship he has with his father, the relationship he has with his own past, and the relationship that he has and is trying to come to terms with in his father's past to just name a few. I think that the graphic novel can be a more accessible medium for readers when talking about difficult topics like the holocaust. Just like Spiegelman uses the mask to distance himself from the book for his own sanity, the informal ton of the graphic novel allows the reader to become submerged in the content with little risk; you go as far as your mind will take you. There is a lot of imagery and symbolism in every page of Maus; whether the reader sees it or not is completely up to them and their willingness to be submerged into Spiegelman's mind. Obviously, this depth can also be found in novels (take C.S. Lewis for example), however, I think that the necessity of interpreting of images makes the connection that much more personal. Just like a novelist has a choice to make about each word or phrase or paragraph so does the graphic novelist about every caption and every image in each frame. The images on 79, 95, and 116 are all examples of how images can portray just as powerfully (if not more-so) the emotion and tension that Spiegelman and his father experienced.

I reluctantly agree that the graphic novel will most likely become the new favorite medium for my generation. A part of me still clings onto the form of the classic novel but in an age of images and status updates instead of newspapers I think that the literature will continue to travel as each generation does.

I never expected to learn so much about myself from this class. By examining the ways in which one can travel, literature can travel, and how we travel via literature I discovered that I am no strange to travel, and not just the physical kind. I have traveled through my experiences at Loyola and in the tradition of Jesuit Education. I also never would have guessed that I would learn so much about my classmates; we have a lot in common. From debates about form, to modern music, and our own generation I was pleasantly surprised at the vastness of our opinions on such topics and that ultimately on most topics I was never alone. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone and creating an environment (with the help of Frozen Yogurt) that I could feel save sharing personal stories in. The discussion that each student brought to the table made it that much easier to go to class every day. I can honestly say that I enjoyed the experience thoroughly.  

It's Been Real

Without question, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began serves as the darkest installment of our semester’s readings. Spiegelman provides the perfect conclusion to our lessons on travel by stripping away its leisurely attributes and exposing us to a form of travel done so out of absolute necessity. Art inquires into the atrocities faced by his father, Vladek, in the concentration camps; a place where travel was the only way to ensure survival along the unpredictable journey towards death. Spiegelman is so successful in his recounts of family history through his inclusion of jarring images alongside words of sheer terror, allowing absolutely no escape from the work’s full effect. In the course of his lifetime Vladek Spiegelman was forced to relocate from his home in Poland into the ghettos, into Auschwitz, bounced from camp to camp, tugged all across Western Europe and eventually lands on America’s east coast rotating between New York and Florida. Although we are absolutely incapable of comprehending the course of internal travel during his time in Auschwitz, the words and illustrations of his son present us with a rude awakening. Sometimes the only way to continue on in the journey of life is to have the internal strength to cheat its conclusion in death.

As our time together as a class comes to an end, I would have to say that the most interesting thing I’ve fully come to understand is that everyone travels along a separate path in life. We all come from different places and we are all continuously sprinting in separate directions, yet we meet the people we meet and experience everything we experience for a reason. It all allows us to travel from fetus to fertilizer, testing our inner beings to flourish in their own individual way. The only way to grasp the complexity of life is to hear as many separate accounts as possible, and this class taught me to share my story with as many other people in anyway possible, whether it be through poetry, songs, or simply chatting with a group of new friends.