Respondents: What do you think of the usage of dialect? Is Vladek the only one to speak in accented English? Is it effective? Confusing? Offensive?

I mentioned in class how infectious Vladek’s inverted speech patterns become by the end of Maus; it’s almost as though his story makes no sense being told in anything other than his specific voice.  The cadences of his voice somehow add to the overall detached feel lent to the book by the art style: Vladek’s tone and diction seem quaint and foreign to us, enhanced by the pared down, sparse art.

Additionally, the transcriptions Professor Sample showed us in class on Tuesday really drove this point home to me. Not only does actually hearing Vladek speak the lines from the book really bring to life the flow and bounce of his words, but listening to the rhythm of his pedaling and its stop at points of emphasis, I was struck by the overall rhythm of his speech and how integral it is to the impact of Maus.

I guess, in a way, Vladek’s accent ultimately doesn’t even register to me anymore, on my fifth or so Maus readthrough. It’s no longer a Jewish or Polish sounding voice, or even an accented one: it’s just Vladek’s.