Blog Mining

1. Blog Mining Sydney’s blogging

2. Very First Blog Maus I: On page 12 it expresses that Vladek did not think that anyone would want to read his life story. Being a survivor of the Holocaust why would any person not want to read his story from the beginning to end?

3. Maus III & IV • Art Spiegelman jumps from the past to present often throughout chapters three and four while trying to explain his story of surviving the holocaust.  Vladek gets off of track telling Artie his story about the holocaust because he gets side tracked very easily.  He kept making side remarks on how things would be different if Anja was still alive because Mala is getting on his nerves. Mala doesn’t like to clean up after herself or anyone else at that. You could tell that Vladek didn’t marry Anja for her money like it pointed out in the first two chapters because he made it clear that Anja was a big part of his life. He risked his life trying to get back to her from being a prisoner of war from the Nazi’s. He knew people that worked for the Nazis and traded things like salt for extra fabric or coupons to provide food for his family. Vladek learned early on to save food incase anything were to happen to his meals for the day during the war. He was smart and knew how to survive when other people had no idea if they would make it through the night. The conditions that the Germans lived in during the German and Nazi war were far from normal, they were only allowed one meal a day that consisted of one piece of bread and a small amount of soup, they had a little blanket to sleep with in freezing cold weather conditions under a small tent. While the Jewish prisoners were force to live under those conditions the Polish prisoners were able to eat two times a day and live in a cabin with their own bed. Once Vladek got transferred to live as a Polish prisoner he was more relaxed and had hope of getting to go home to his family. He had a dream one night and it was his grandfather telling him that he will be released from the camp when it becomes ParshasTruma, which is a Jewish holiday and sure enough he was released. Vladek was released on that day and it was the same week that he married Anja and the week, which Artie was born. Not only was he rleased he made it home safe to see his family.

4. MausI Conclusion • As Maus I is coming to an end I realized that it not only got more intense but scenes get more graphic. I am wondering why the characters are now people and no longer cats and mice? The next thing i came across was the constant fighting between Artie and Vladek, Artie seems to have built a compassionate sense of angry towards his father. Possibly Artie is feeling like he is letting his dad down, like he is not living up to his expectations. But if you think about it, Vladek is constantly stubborn, so this could in fact be the root of their bickering. At the same time, the fighting between the two may be bringing them closer. To me, a major contribution Anja’s suicide was Artie saying he “guesses” he loves her. Something like this is taken right to the heart and is probably the root of her pre-suicide depression. After Artie’s mother passes away, Vladek decided to burn all of Anja’s diaries. To Artie, this was the end of the world. Those diaries were all he had left of this mother. Burning the diaries were equivalent to “murdering” her, as Artie thought. Artie knew that whatever was written in those diaries were meant for only his eyes to see when he grew up, but now Vladek made that impossible. Vladek is unable to have any remembrance of his past wife, resulting in him burning every last memory of her. I believe that all the events that take place in this conclusion will lead smoothly into the next book. These events foreshadow what will come to be in Maus ll.

5. Maus II • Chapters 1-3 is just proving that Maus is only getting better as the book continues. I am seeing that there is some hostility towards Vladeck from his son, when there should be some sympathy i feel. Vladecks wife just left him and he is probably not as upset as most would be because he seemed as though he didn't care that much for Mala as he did for Anja. Mala knowing how cheap that Vladeck is still took his money like she was doing the entire time they were together and it was money he worked really hard to make. I wonder if there is a court system that he could fight for his money like there is now a days? Meanwhile, Artie is trying to get out of staying with his father through a bad time in his life. I feel like Artie should be very sympathetic to his fathers feeling because he is giving his a sotry to write for his comic book and its on the most depressing part of his life. I can tell that Vladeckdoesnt like talking about it at all but is doing it just so that he can help his son out.

6. Maus II Conclusion • Maus II coming to a conclusion I feel as though I have a new outlook on the Holocaust. These two books have been intresting and really easy to read unlike most books read in a englsih class.  It used a different way to tell a holocaust story rahter than a diary, which is a common way of telling someone's story who survived the holocaust. Vladeck surviving the concetration camps and war was very rare and should be a happy thing. Knowing that Vladeck is not happy in his life is devestating because he went through the worst thing that i believe anyone could go through. He had the knowledge to survive and was happy to help other people survive as well. When he tells the stories to his son I could only imagine the pain he went through and relived again as he told his story. I wonder why he was never happy? Then I realize it was because Anja had died, he was sick, and Mala was with him only for his money. Mala divorcing him was to show that she only wanted his money. Clearing his bank account of all his money when she left him was horrible. That money i could only imagine how hard he worked for through the hard times in his life. Was he saving it for Artie for when he passed away?? Artie on the other hand i feel was only talking to him to get a story for his comice book. Why not try and start a relationship with his father instead of just visiting him for a sotry?

7. Conculsion • Blogging in English 1103 was a first for me along with a lot of other things like, comic books, and college. Since I had never used a blogging website before this class I was not sure what I was suppose to be writing about. As I wrote more about Maus I and Maus II I started to get the hang of it and knew what I was blogging about because I got more interested into the book and understood it more.