Hopeful vs. Hopeless

So, obviously Spiegleman and Vonnegut wrote very different books. One is a graphic novel while the other is a satiric novel with a not so subtle hint of pessimism. I don’t think it would be outlandish to speculate the overwhelming majority of readers would prefer Maus to Slaughterhouse-5. The latter is more difficult to read and become immersed in while the former has a very fluid storyline. That being said, the two do have some similarities like Kathryn, Paul, and Sarah discussed; I would be incredibly dull if I repeated them. Although we don’t really get introduced to this side of the story by page 71, I am very interested to see how the perspective and the content will start to differ. Of course the protagonists in both stories are prisoners of war, but Vladek was a Jew. So, I’m curious how a Jewish POW to whom the war meant fighting for his lives and the lives of his family, will tell his story as opposed to the American soldier who wasn’t invested in the cause for the war. Thus far, the one thing I very much enjoy about Maus is the optimism embedded in the novel. Vonnegut chooses to tell a very bitter story that doesn’t get any better when the war is over, when he talks about the war, he immerses you in the immediate filth of it, when he brings you out of a flashback, it’s not a particularly pleasant scene either. Spiegleman chooses instead to interrupt the war story to bring us back to a living room where a father talks with his son about the events he survived. You can tell that there is affection between the two, but not in a romantic sense where it’s a perfect father/son relationship, it’s something readers can relate to. The dad is aggravating, but he’s old, and he looks out for his son. Yes, he complains about his second wife, but he’s not having an affair or ripping into her. In summary, I think Maus is more pleasant to read because there are subtle reminders on every page that surviving was worth the endurance and sacrifices it required.