“A Plot is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect.”
-Wikipedia
Maus: A survivor’s Tale is a graphic memoir written and illustrated by Art Spiegelman as he records events about his father, Vladek, and how he endured World War II as a highly religious Jew, prevailing as Holocaust surviver. The memoir is divided up into two halves, the first being Part I: My Father Bleeds History, and the second is Part II: And Here My Troubles Began. As a group, we evaluated the first half to introduce ourselves to the content, the atmosphere, surroundings, in order to truly grasp the vivid feelings and emotions of the protagonist, Vladek. The first half of Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is divided into several sectors;
Chapter 1 | The Sheik
Chapter 2 | The Honeymoon
Chapter 3 | The Prisoner of War
Chapter 4 | The Noose Tightens
Chapter 5 | Chapter 2 | Mouse Holes
Chapter 6 | Mouse Trap
The layout of this book serves as a graphic memoir/ comic book of how Art envisioned and recorded the information recalled and stated by his father. It almost proves to be a memoir within a memoir, how Art consumed the information being recalled by his father through his ‘vocal memoir’ or recollection during the 1930’s and 1940’s, and how he portrayed it through cartoon illustrations. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is a uniquely contrived memoir, allowing the audience to obtain a more understanding view of the story-line through the implementation of anthropomorphism, otherwise known as personification. Being a Graphic Memoir, the graphic portrayal utilizes personification of the human body with animal-heads in order to represent various cultures and social statuses of characters seen throughout.
There are 3 main character traits evidently seen throughout the memoir, this consisted of human bodies with:
Mouse | representing the Jewish people
Cat | represented Nazi’s
Pig | represented the ‘Poles’, or Polish people
References:
Wikipedia. (2015). Plot (narrative). Retrieved Mar 26, 2015 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_%28narrative%29
Another awesome job Tanya! I love how descriptive and detailed this is and how easy it is to follow and understand the plot of the memoir.
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