Spiegelman vs Vonnegut

The one striking difference between Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Spiegelman’s Maus is that Slaughterhouse-Five is a novel, while Maus is a graphic novel. As expected of a graphic novel, Maus is written in a comic strip format while also presented as a book. In the comics, Spiegelman depicts the story of his dad’s (Vladek) struggles during the Holocaust. There are many similarities and differences between the themes and narrative structure within both books. One of the main similarities is that both books centers on a traumatic event within WWII, the bombing of Dresden in Slaughterhouse-Five and the Holocaust in Maus. On top of that, both of the main characters were drafted into the war, captured, and ordered to work as prisoners of war. Another similarity between the books is that time plays a major role within the storytelling. Both stories are told in the past and present, though Vonnegut obviously exaggerates more as Billy Pilgrim is able to travel through time and this happens frequently. I also found it odd that both of the main protagonists married into a wealthy family and was able to become well off through marriage and not of hard work. I’m not exactly sure if this was purely coincidental, or perhaps the author was trying to convey a message. One of main differences between the two books was the reliability of the narrator. In Slaughterhouse-Five, the narrator was, I felt, unreliable because sometimes it seems like there were two different narrators. Also the story of Billy Pilgrim is not in chronological order, which makes it more difficult to understand. In Maus, the narrator was more clear and precise and the story is structured chronologically, and as a result I was able follow along more easily. Though I found Spiegelman’s work easier to comprehend, I was not fond of the English within Vladek’s dialogues. As stated earlier, the main difference between the books is that one is a novel while the other is a graphic novel. As a result, one allows the reader to use his or her sense of imagination to the fullest extent, while the other allows little to no imagination; however, we the readers are able to see things directly from the author’s perspective. While each has its pros and cons, I personally preferred reading Maus to Slaughtherhouse-Five.