Pages 41-47 of Book 2, Chapter 2 have undeniably been my favorite pages of this story thus far. As noted in my Response blurb last week, and echoed in some of my classmate’s writings, as well as in Maus, the Holocaust is nearly intangible to us, almost like a legend or old wives’ tale to conjure bad dreams and keep us on the straight and narrow. The simplistic art and the fact that Maus is a memoir, I think, helps to ground the events in a more modern, or maybe relevant, to us, setting, and allow me to relate better to the story, not through Vladek, but through Art (ironic wordplay unintentional and inevitable, but nonetheless salient).
The frames containing Art being bombarded by reporters and businessmen, etc., capture the ‘surviving’ from Art’s point of view and how different and insignificant that survival may be in comparison. Here, Art is tackling the realization that whatever he accomplishes immediately means less in comparison to the legacy of those who came before him. The frame at the bottom of page 41 is extremely potent, and I would use the word ‘favorite’, but that would be far too extremely morbid. My ‘favorite’ panels aside from that one, however, occur on the next page, where we witness Art’s transformation in to a child, and his subsequent meeting with the shrink.
Okay, a few more ‘favorites’: page 45, the last three panels. Great quote, even greater counterpoint.
What stood out to me about the Time Flies section, was the reappearance of the flies at the end of this section. At first I didn’t really know what to make of it…it was just something that caught my attention. We mentioned it in class today though and I agree it acts as a nice frame for the section closing out with the flies it opens up with and is titled for, not to mention the insecticide reference but I couldn’t(and can’t) help but feel that there was something more that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Maybe its the negative connotation flies have of being a nuisance that is making me wonder about whether Spiegelman was also insinuating something about the passing of time being a hassle…
Another thing I was wondering about from this section is the fluctuating of Art’s age. He is young, meets with the psychiatrist(gets old again) then begins this project and gets young again…but he shrinks when he(Artie) raises his voice….on the tape recording so I’m not sure if it is the pressure of the project or his personal “demons?” about his interactions/relationship with his father that make him feel small.