Spiegelman vs. Vonnegut

      There are more differences than similarities between Spiegelman and Vonnegut's styles. The only major similarity between Maus and Slaughterhouse-Five is that both books are related to the topic of war. While Slaughterhouse-Five is a formatted as a novel, Maus is a graphic novel. Although Maus appears to have less written content because it is a graphic novel, Spiegelman does a better job of providing the audience with useful and coherent information than Vonnegut; one of the ways he does this is through his narration. Vonnegut's narration was confusing because the reader never knows from what point of view he/she is reading, whether it is Billy, Vonnegut, or some other character, however, Spiegelman makes it clear who is narrating or talking in the cartoon strips.One major difference I noticed was the main character's background and characteristics. Billy is a very passive young man from America who rarely has a strong reaction to anything; Vladek Spiegelman is a Jewish man who is very active and reacts to even little things. While Billy believes all events are destined to happen no matter what; Vladek believes there is always a better option. When facing a difficult situation Billy does not take any type of action, like when he his being shot at in war and when he knows he is about to be killed by a hit man hired by Lazzaro. However, Vladek attempts to find solutions when he has a problem, such as, when Anja gets depressed and when he becomes a prisoner of war. Although both were drafted, Billy was a naive, young boy thrown into the war, and Vladek had voluntarily joined the Polish reserve, even though his father discouraged him greatly; he was he was too determined to be stopped from joining. One element in Maus that caught my attention was the interaction between the writer and his father, unlike Slaughterhouse-Five that had unrealistic events involving aliens and time travel, Maus appeared to be more truthful because of the casual conversation between father and son. Particually, when Vladek talks about how he met Anja and tells his son not to write about it; yet the son promises and writes about it anyways. This made it seem as if the author is not censoring his writing. Overall, I prefer Speiegelman over Vonnegut because it flows naturally because it is written by someone who is interviewing a person that has dealt with war first hand, but the writer can take the information and attempt to piece it together in order without getting distracted. I also think the representation of the different races of people is clever and lessens confusion; especially considering the quote by Hitler at the beginning of the book.