Speigelman and Vonnegut

The first similarity I found between Speigelman’s and Vonnegut’s story telling, is that they both started of there stories with the a character wanting to write a story about experiences dealing with the Second World War. The differences, besides Maus being a graphic novel, is that the Speigelman’s story telling is much more linear than Vonnegut’s there is a little jumping around but back and forth between Vladek and Art in the present to, when it’s just Vladek in the past. While Vonnegut’s story had no real chronological order to it at all (which I believe really helped get across the point of a possible mental disorder Billy may have suffered from). I am personally preferring Maus so far mainly because it is in a more set time line. I realize that the jumping around in Slaughterhouse Five was a very intentional and important aspect to the story, but it really made it a hard read for me. I also am liking the character of Vladek much more than the charecter of Billy Pilgrim. This is because Vladek is was a much easier character to relate with than Billy, Vladek was more of a everyday guy. He had a job with an apartment just trying to get by, going in between relationship, he’s actually active in his life. This is also shown when he first got into combat and killed a German soldier and stated “well at least I did something” compared to Billy who didn’t do anything, Billy was just way to passive for me to relate to. I have never met anyone that is or was as passive as Billy.  It made him almost feel fake to me, as if no person alive could possibly be that passive in life, which I suppose is what Vonnegut was going for.