Sunday, January 26, 2014

Slaughterhouse-Five v.s Maus

The only similarity Vonnegut and Speigelman share in their stories is the topic of WWII. While both novels center around WWII, they contain completely different story lines. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is written as a science fiction novel from the perspective of an American soldier who survives the bombing of Dresden. Aliens and time travel are then inserted into the story, which causes the reader to become confused and question what to take from the novel. It is difficult to tell if the outrageous parts of the story should be taken seriously or symbolically.  


Speigelman’s Maus is drastically different from Slaughterhouse-Five. Maus is a graphic novel written from the perspective of a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. Speigelman uses animals to depict different races of humans. For example, Jews are mice, Non-Jewish Poles are pigs, and Nazis are cats. Compared to Slaughterhouse-Five, this novel is much clearer and more straightforward. The illustrations capture the reader and help explain the story so there is no confusion for the reader.  

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