Comparing Maus, Romeo And Juliet, And The Things They Carried

Reading literature creates and transports us into a wide variety of worlds that give light to real life and the nature that makes humans human. Works such as Maus, Romeo and Juliet, and The Things They Carried create experiences that invoke feelings and emotions to exemplify the reality of human nature. Maus is a distinctive survivor story by author and artist Art Spiegelman that uses mice, cats, and pigs to symbolize different human ethnicities and their behaviors towards one another. This graphic novel narrates the experiences of Art and his family during World War II and the dehumanization inflicted by humans on each other. It shows the complex nature of humanity through the lens of Vladek Spiegelman recounting his story to his son Art.

The impact of years of trauma for Vladek makes it a struggle for Art to understand and connect with his father, who has dealt with immense suffering. The dynamic between them reflects the persistent tension, barriers, and even love that families can share. In Maus, the depiction of the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice shows how people during that time were stripped of their individuality and grouped as inferior to other races. The Jews or mice in this case lost sense of their own humanity due to the acts of racism, cruelty, and prejudice that were forced upon them by the human nature of the Nazis or cats. Additionally, the horrible conditions, labor, and absence of basic rights the Jews endured further shows dehumanization and the Nazi belief that they truly were the vermin of the earth. Romeo and Juliet is a drama all about feelings and emotions that predominantly use love and hate to show human nature and experiences. The main example of the love and hate relationship is between the houses of the Montagues and the Capulets, two Italian families both trying to be assertive of power over each

Their love mainly shows the blinding ability and intensity of young love. It also shows the power to make people go to extreme lengths and against society for love. Romeo and Juliet are filled with eros after meeting at the Capulet party and begin forgetting themselves as they do whatever it takes to be together. This shows human nature through the power and consuming ability of young love as Romeo and Juliet become focused on their feelings as they decide to get married in secret despite the risks involving their families, go against society, and tragically die just for the hope of being together in the end. The Things They Carried delves into human nature by portraying the emotional burdens and mental effects of the Vietnam war through a series of fictional stories recounting the experiences of the soldiers. Tim O’Brien starts off with Jimmy Cross narrating all the things that he, along with all the other soldiers, carried. He lists things such as assault rifles, ammunition, food rations, clothes, and other things of a typical ground soldier. Most of them also carried things specific to themselves that symbolize deeper parts of their personalities and human