Maus Part 2 (Extra)

After reading Maus 1 and Maus 2 I was able to see many similarities and differences between the two. First of all, one difference that I noticed was that Maus 2 seemed to break down the story line a lot more. However, the story line does seem to go in the same direction as the first. Another difference that I noticed in Maus 2 as opposed to Maus 1 is that it seemed to be a lot more detailed and therefore I enjoyed Maus 2 more. The details that Spegielman is able to really describe well in Maus 2 is when he starts explaining the torture that they went through. I found that Maus 1 was a difficult story to accept because of the storyline its only the beginning of the story, making Maus 2 even harder to accept because of the details of the tragic events that really took place. Although Maus 2 was a difficult story to read and accept because of the tragic events that are described, I really enjoyed reading it and definitely liked it better than Maus 1 because Spegielman provides more details.

Maus

I found the way that Spiegelman attempts to describe and try to be able to have the reader's relate to the experiences of the Holocaust and a troubled relationship to be very affective. The book is able to depict the Holocaust through an actual survivor and thus makes it easy for people to feel connected and able to experience little parts of what survivors went through. Because of this I really enjoyed reading the novel because it was very well written and was told through the eyes of a survivor, which makes the book more personal. Not only that but because the Holocaust is an actual event, the book reveals so many emotions not only for the characters of the book but also for readers. I also thought that the way the book was written, with animals representing people, such as Jews represented by mice, Germans represented by cats and so on to be a very clever way to go about writing this novel. Instead of the traditional Jews and Germans Spiegelman uses a different approach with cats and mice, being a very effective and interesting comparison.