Personally,
I love graphic novels, and I think that is one of the best way to depict an
action or a event, because human are visual animals, plus, not all people are
able to fully grasp the language or the tone that authors use when describing
what really happened. Especially for a war novel, I think language itself are
insufficient when it comes to painting the image in a person’s brain; one of
the most memorable picture of the book was the passport stamping camp, the
police mouse gathered all mice throughout the city for passport stamps,
however, it turned out to be a scheme, and no mouse survived. Five simple
pictures had completely depicted the tragic event, on top of that, I think it
was really cleaver of the author to use animals, because if they were humans,
the message would not be as effective, and this concept could only be brought
to life in a graphic novel.
I
think the reason why the traumas was passed from father to son, was because the
sense of identity. Like in all other
cultures, people and civilizations always remember what they all have overcame,
glorious tale and tragedy alike, are all part of their history, more importantly
their sense of identity. Going back to Maus, the author felt the same pain as
his father because for him, it is just like he himself had went through all
these events, he identified himself also as a Jew, therefore, he felt even
worse seeing all his ancestors lost their life, and he can do nothing about it.
I liked your point on how we have our guilt from our sense of identity from our cultures. The mere fact that Art is a jew he automatically just inherits his guilt from the holocaust. He has no reason to be guilty he was not even alive during this time period, but he is. He just has to live with the not knowing first hand what went on, but by hearing the horror stories from his elders who were survivors. The only thing I wonder is how may generations will this guilt last for, will Art’s children inherit the same guilt?
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