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Analyzing Choices Of Others In Maus By Art Speigelman

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Recommended: Holocaust narrative essay

Graziella Carnassale
Mrs Yost
ELA 8
19 May 2023

Analyzing the Choices of Others

Good morning, class. My name is Grazi. When I was young, my father was deported; now that he’s gone to the war I realized I never sent him a letter. Choices like these can impact a person and their livelihood, possibly changing the entire course of their life. In the comic Maus by Art Speigelman, the reader listens to Art’s father, Vladek, illustrating the horrors he went through in the Holocaust. Differing from other Holocaust survivor stories, Maus adds a personal level and contains much of Vladek’s own life and how his trauma affects him present-day, and how it affects his relationships with others. By analyzing other people’s choices, we can learn important …show more content…

“Workers needed; War prisoners may volunteer for labor assignments to replace German workers called to the front. Housing and abundant food will be supplied…I’m not going to die and I won’t die here! I want to be treated like a human being!” (Speigelman 54). In this scene, Vladek is currently a prisoner of war to the Germans and rotting away in a camp for the Jewish refugees. He sees a sign that claims workers can go to a German work camp with better housing and food; he ends up deciding to go. By choosing to go, he was putting his health over comfort, and was able to stay in shape and in good condition over the time he was stuck as a prisoner. When a construction worker builds a house/building, he must spend time making sure each brick and piece of the foundation is perfectly placed and dry. Though this takes time and effort, he perseveres through and eventually finishes the building. If he were to take shortcuts (not waiting for the bricks to finish drying, skipping a piece of foundation, ect.) though the job would be done quicker, the entire building could collapse from his attempt at a shortcut, causing many injuries and ailments to others. The hard work put into a job shows directly after and in the long run. In conclusion, hard labor pays off, especially in the long

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