Maus 1 - 6pts

I enjoy the way the story is told and the style. I like that the boy is telling the story and hearing it from his father. I like how the time period is represented well and how even though it's a story about the holocaust, it first starts with an individual's life before the war. It makes it clear that this is his fathers story and not the author's. It also shows how the father is different after having the experience of war. For example, he has to take a lot of pills, has one glass eye, and had suffered two heart attacks. In the story it shows how when he was younger he had delicate hands and was very handsome. It highlights how Jewish prisoners were viewed different from polish ones. I think the way Vladek's father starved him to prevent him from being enlisted to the war was also training him to survive the holocaust. He was tougher than others and even bathed in freezing water and did exercise to stay clean. It's funny to compare his ideals to his son's. I like the interactions between them to show how they are from different generations. It's also sad to hear about all the people in his story he never hears from again. Also the shadow of Auschwitz looms over everything and is foreshadowed. I remember when a speaker came to my high school who was a survivor as well. The way they had to hide people and sneak people across to other sides of the lines the Nazi's were splitting up women and children.  I think it's interesting how it intertwines the father's present problems with the ones from the war. It makes his arguments with his second wife much less important in the grand scheme of things. You'd think he'd be less worried about money... especially after the part of the story he told about his father in-law who had a lot of money and it still didn't save him from being sent to Auschwitz and the gas chambers. I enjoy the visual of using pig masks when they pretend to be Polish and not Jewish. Using animals to represent different races doesn't make them any less human. They make it visually apparent who is who in regards to the war and the people involved.

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