As you may already know, Art Spiegelman was the son of
two holocaust survivors. His parents struggled with survivors guilt which is
the feeling of constantly questioning one’s reason to be alive while in this
case, almost 6 million people died. When surviving such a terrible think like
the holocaust, one might wonder: Why me? Why did my friend died and not me? What
is so special about me that I lived but all my family died?
Being the son of two holocaust survivors, Spiegelman
inherited this sense of guiltiness and struggled with the constant feeling of
having to validate himself. However, it did not matter what he did, or how much
he suffered because he would never suffer as much as his parents, and your
existence becomes insignificant as your problems are worth nothing.
I believe that Art Spiegmelman wrote this story for
many reasons. One of them could be as a way of self-therapy to deal with his mother’s
suicide and to reconstruct the story that his father had taken away from him by
burning his mother’s diaries.
The second reason I believe Art Spiegmelman wrote a
story like this, was because he felt it was his duty to tell it and to tell it
his way. Even though it was the hardest way, he chose to be innovative. Every
time a person tells a story of something real, they are running the risk of
trivializing it. But running the risk of trivializing something as terrible as
the holocaust, especially when he was the son of 2 survivors, may turn you into
a monster.
Even if Spiegelman is telling the story of his father,
he is also telling the story of his complex present and instead of choosing a
congregated genre to do it, he uses comics to tell stories that maybe should
not be told; as how can I put myself in the shoes of anther so as to recreate
my own story?
Taking into account the effect of inherited survivor´s
guilt that he suffered, reflect upon the following questions:
1) Why did he chose animals to tell his story?
2) Do you think writing this story was a way of
validating his existence?
3) Why is it so necessary for him to know about the past
in order to understand the present?
First of all, I really enjoyed yous post. And regarding your third question, I do tally with the idea that you always need to know your past, in order to understand your present, because only knowing where you come from, what your story, what's the story of your environment, your context, will lead you to understand why you think the way you think, why you act the way you act and why you are in that particular place in your life.
ResponderEliminarIsabella,
ResponderEliminarFirst of all, I want to say that your entry was really interesting, quite thought-provoking and very similar to what we discussed in class (and what I refer on my entry which is below).
Regarding your questions, I consider Spiegelman decided to write this novel with animals because, in a way, he could make the cruelty a little bit "softer". I believe human beings think that a story could be less crude with anthropomorphized animals as main characters.
Related to your second question, I would say that writing this story made Spiegelman validate his existence. He was the channel, the path in which his father's experience could be spread.
Finally, I'm firmly convinced that is compeltely necessary to know about our past to understand our present and construct a better future. In addition, we have to be very critical about these periods such as the holocaust or other conflictive episodes of history. There is a lot of mythology, a lot of rumours about them and we have to be smart enough to discern based on historical facts.
My answer to your second question is definitely yes. I think Spiegelman wrote this story in order to find some kind of purpose or meaning to his own life, mainly because he could not compite with what had happened to his father, as we discussed in class, since nothing compared to what he had lived in the past, in the Nazi Poland. Maybe Spiegelman wanted to understand his past, as you guys have pointed out, so that he could comprehend the reasons why things are the way they are in his own life.
ResponderEliminarI have to disagree with Eduardo with the animal representation. I tend to think that being compared to animals reflects our animal, wild and uncontrolled behavior, I think that the comparison with animals does not make it softer but more cruel, with no feelings and driven by a need of surviving.
ResponderEliminarin your second question, I would have to also disagree, I dont think that he wrote the story to validate his own existence but to better understand his father and maybe get close to him. I see it as the crying of a child to find a common ground with his father, and to being able to connect with him. I believe that surviving something as terrible as the nazi era, must have left many wounds and terrifying memories that at the end kept his dad from a healthy relationship with his son, and Art was trying to fix that with the resources he had at hand.
And finally, for your last question, I will have to agree with all of the responses, We need to know were we come from, because after all, our history shaped who we are today.
Interesting post!
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