Maus Response

It seems as if all the Jews are shaded. However, some of those who are speaking are not shaded. The effect of writing a comic strip makes it more of a narrative. It is a series of events that when used in a graphic novel the pictures give more of an image as to what is going on. Some of the dialogue written is not part of the actual dialogue being spoken. It is more of a narrative for the readers to know what was going on in each box. For example, “everyone was worried”. That line allows the reader to visualize the feelings in that room. If there were no visuals there would be a different picture in my head. With the dialogue the reader is able to tell what is going on, however the visuals aid in allowing all readers to picture the same thing. The images react with the text in the sense that they correspond accordingly. I would say the visuals are there so the readers are able to visualize exactly what happened, especially when the Jewish people were all being told to register, it is important that you get the visual that thousands of people were being told to do so. Spiegelman sets the tone but the use of his words. Immediately after the first question containing the word Auschwitz, a rush of images will run through the readers mind because of the horrible stories tied into it. One of the most important layers of meaning portrayed in this is the idea that the Jewish are represented by rats, and the Nazi’s are represented by Cats. This signifies that the Nazi’s are superior to the Jewish, just like Cats are to Rats. The visual and textual elements of this paper work together because they really try to get across the idea of what was going on at that time. Just as the narrative says, whether or not they went and registered, they were not in good shape.