A Midsummer Night's Dream

After reading this book it really seems like a story within a story. On page 68 the scene looks like it is staged with Demetrius trying to get rid of Hermia and Hermia attaching herself to Demetrius in any way she can. He is standing to the left trying to leave her and she is at the bottom right holding on to his leg. All of the word bubbles are in the shape of a heart. There is love between both of them and you can tell becasue the word bubbles that are in the shape of a heart are going both ways. This realtionship is valuable becuase it is the main relationship in the story. The words are very important but the pictures add so much more to it that it really makes this scene come alive and it is easier to understand.

I think that if readers were to read the manga version of this as well as the regular version of this story they would get a lot more out of the manga version. This seems to be a harder story to understand and the pictures really add a lot to it, making it easier for the reader to undersatand .

Maus Second Part

After our first in class discussion I realized that Maus was called mouse and it made me read the story a little differently. I loved how in the end of the story Valedik was burried next to Anja. On page 295. They were shown with their gravestone together but cracked down the middle. I am guessing that hte author decided to shown their gravestone this way becuase by the end of the story they were no longer married even though they still both cared very deeply for each other. They were true sweethearts and it was a cute way to end it. I also liked how in the end Mala and Valedik became clsoer they had a lot of hardships and had a very long time getting along with one another. I would have liked it better if in the end Valedik had more compassion for Mala and would have shown her some appreciation. Mala went through the same things as Valedik went through they just both reacted in their own differnt ways to them.

Maus Homework

After reading some of the articles I noticed that a lot of them mentioned about how Art Speigelman used mice, cats and pigs to represent the characters was a form of sterotyping. I find it very interesting that others and not only our class find this to be true as well. When I was writing my response paper I wrote about how the characters were portrayed but I thought that I was the only one who thought anything of it. I love how so many people in our class had the same idea.
A lot of the articles also go into great detail about how this story was like a guideline of the Holocasut providing details adn perspectives pre/post the holocaust as well as during it. And since it is Artie's father telling the story and Artie writing it, its almost as if you get the story exactly.
I also find it very interesting that he decided to use a comic book form to write about such a tragic and historic event. Most people think of comics as being funny and a joke so I am very suprised that this book turned out so well and that it won so many awards.

Maus

After reading the first part of Maus, a theme that I thought was present all through out the story was friendship and family bonds. The story starts off with Artie roller skating with his friends, when he starts complaning about his friends his father says the way you know someone is your true friend is if you are locked together in a room with no food for a week and you manage okay. This was in the first two pages before the actual story begins.

Friendship and family bonds are present in several other situations as well such as on page 112-113 when Artie's father and mother hide in a bunker with some other Jewish people to try to escape from the Germans.

My response paper was mainly focused on why the characters were depicted as mice instead of people. But for today in class I think tha ti would like to focus on the idea of friendship. Their is a lot of information that can back up and support my thoughts.

Artie's father met his wife on page 18 through friedship and family ties.
Met friends in the P.O.W. camp page 55
Friends and business partners get hung page 85
changing sides page 93
hiding page 112-114, 123