- One of the reasons Vladek is so concerned with money is because he had to use everything he had to even survive in late 30s and early to mid 40s in Nazi Germany. I'm not sure from just Maus I why he had to fix the roof or why he distrusts Mala so much, but he may dislike her mostly because Anja and he had been through so much together and Mala, while she was also a survivor, did not go through that same experience as him. He possibly insists on doing things himself because he always has had to do things on his own. He developed a philosophy of self-reliance because of him having to go through the Holocaust.
- Mice are usually hunted by cats, so drawing the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats is pretty self-explanatory as a metaphor. The reason he chose the non-Jewish Poles to be portrayed as pigs was possibly because the Polish people in the story do a lot of "squealing" on the German Jews, usually to save their own skins. Pigs are pretty resourceful animals, as well, so the Poles doing what they can to survive in German-occupied Poland would naturally be drawn as pigs. I think it's a very effective metaphor that simplifies a lot of the complex political things that were happening at the time and lets the reader focus more on the storytelling as a whole.
- He calls his father a murderer because he destroyed all that was left of Anja after she died. It was so important for Art to find out about Auschwitz because he was telling the story, and his father destroying the books was sort of murdering Anja and who she was after the holocaust ended.
- I think that this book is a really effective way of teaching the material. It's easier to absorb the information in pictures as opposed to trying to make a picture with words. Sometimes it can even be more harrowing.
Completed with Brandon S., Kayley P., and Casey J.
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