Spiegelman vs Vonnegut

In Maus, Spiegelman’s writing is different compared to Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five. Maus is a war story written as a comic book. I thought that it was interesting that the characters in the story are depicted as mice. I wonder why Spiegelman choose to do that. The beginning of the book starts with Spiegelman asking his father questions about his father’s life. The reader gets an insight of how Spiegelman’s parents met and background information of his family. Some similarities between Speigelman and Vonnegut’s books are that they both convey a message about how the war has affected veterans physically and mentally. Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, shows many signs of physical damage from the war. He has a heart problem, his vision is bad, and he has to take lots of medication. In Vonnegut’s story Billy Pilgrim suffers from mental disabilities and struggles throughout the story. So far by just reading the first three chapters of Maus, I prefer reading Maus than Slaughterhouse-Five. I think it is much easier to read Maus because it is not jumping around to different stories as much as Slaughterhouse-Five. In Vonnegut’s book I was often confused because I could not keep track of the different stories inside a story. Billy Pilgrim could be in the war at one moment and in Tralfamadoria in another second. So far in Maus, there is the past and present and it is not so hard to follow. Both of these books tell a war story in unconventional ways and it is very fascinating to get a different interpretation of the war.