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Ethnic/Religious Heterogeneity is Irrelevant

This might be a rough start for this assignment; a loaded statement with multiple possible interpretations. Don’t worry, I’ll explain:

Art Spiegelman develops a metaphor throughout both parts of Maus, where different animals represent different nationalities/ethnicities (ex. Mice represent Jews, Pigs represent poles, Cats represent Germans, etc.). We discover that this is a deeply engraved metaphor, and not the novel’s objective reality in page 64 of the first book, where Vladek passes off as a Pole by wearing a pig mask in order to board a train and escape to Sosnowiec.

In the illustrations, it is clear that Vladek, a mouse, is wearing a pig mask, and easily manages to convince the Polish trainman (a pig) of his false identity by bonding momentarily through their mutual dislike of Germans. If the book’s objective reality were to be that of different animals representing different nationalities/ethnicities, then the Polish trainman would have easily caught on to the fact Vladek was wearing a mask, which was made very obvious in the illustrations. This being the case, it is safe to assume Spiegelman is trying to communicate a very relevant message through this animal metaphor.

Given that a mouse passed off as a pig, reason tells me Spiegelman is implicitly stating that nationality or ethnicity is a relatively irrelevant way to classify and identify individuals. A well-crafted performance and presentation from a mouse led him to be identified as a pig by an actual pig; in literal terms, nationality is a construct that is irrelevant when assessing the subjective value of a life, as it is a personal variable that is malleable and misinterpretable to a certain extent.

If one were to be placed in a room with 10 individuals of different origins, it’d be nearly impossible to distinguish their nationalities/ethnicities; A Jew can pass off as a Pole, a Nicaraguan as a Guatemalan, a Brit as an Argentinian. In the end, this relates to the overarching idea that no matter where we come from, where we are, and we’ll be, we’re just humans after all.

What’s In Your Bag

The items I usually carry in my backpack:

  • Notebook
  • Laptop
  • Calculator
  • Pens
  • Pencils
  • Sunglasses
  • Book weight.

I felt this was a relatively simple project because I typically don’t carry much in my backpack. I don’t know that this really represents me, but I guess I typically do keep things simple and organized. While making this image, I made sure to keep everything in line within the width of the bag in order to create a line of sight within which to view the items. I think getting the lighting right for the image was the most difficult part because I didn’t have a good light source. I overcame this by changing the light gradient in the photo editor on my phone. I don’t think representing myself in a catalog of the stuff in my bag as a type of writing because I typically associate it writing with language. However I do see how one could make such an association.

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Tracing Maus Reflection

Before starting this project, I thought it wouldn’t be particularly difficult. However, I was immediately amazed at how long it took to even trace the individual pages of the book. For each page I must have traced for at least an hour and a half. I would definitely say that my tracing ability has improved as well as my recognition of proper tracing technique. In the first tracing, I often would smudge the graphite because of my hand. Consequently, I learned to draw left to right and carefully avoid contact with the paper as best as I could. After all of the tracings, the annotation proved to have its own problems. I initially though that I would just highlight certain aspects of the page, but after looking at a classmates annotation I realized I should cover the page in text. So, the annotations also took me around an hour and a half each. Next came writing about the different themes throughout Maus. I didn’t have any particular trouble with this part, but it was time consuming writing all of the ideas out. Finally came creating the landing page and posting the work. I found this to be the most gratifying part of the project because it felt like I truly finished as well as having something tangible online. Overall I would say this was a fun yet time consuming project.

Tracing Maus Reflection

When I was thinking about the pages that I chose for this assignment, I could not find any similarities and did not know what to write about. Then I decided to trace the chosen pages and during the process to notice some features that these two pages have in common. While I was engaged in the process of tracing them, I started noticing some details that I’ve never paid attention to before. This assignment helped me to better understand how big the tragedies were for Vladek and how they left a deep scar on his heart for the rest of his days. The tracing process itself was very unusual but I think I did pretty well. However, it took much longer to trace it that I thought. I spent a few hours on this assignment without even noticing how time flew. Additionally, for me, it was much easier to present my ideas in chunks like this, instead of writing in a more traditional format. However, I do not feel that this assignment helped me to get in on this secret language.

Overall, I highly enjoyed tracing and annotating pages and then linking the ideas between them.

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Photo: scanned from Maus’ cover page

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