"me abt to do my makeup"

Last night I came across this meme. The first thought that came to mind was, Anja?! After what feels like weeks of often painfully detailed analysis of the graphic novel Maus, the memories are hard to erase. Every time I close my eyes I see stripes and flies. This inescapable memory of Spiegelman’s sketches aids in his emphasis on Vladek’s inability to move on from the horrors he experienced during the Holocaust. Maybe Spiegelman intentionally included so many subtle details throughout his panels in order for readers to over-analyze everything, thus imprinting his story in our minds the way the Holocaust is imprinted in his father’s. I’m not saying I did not like reading Maus, buuut I sure will be glad when we finally end this unit. It was obviously nowhere near as traumatic of an experience as the Holocaust or the suicide of a dearly loved one - there’s no comparison. However, my desire to turn these books in and never see them again really helps me understand why Vladek would want to destroy Anja’s notebooks. His memories are incomprehensibly horrific, and Art’s anger and insensitivity towards this seems really self-centered and hypocritical. He calls his father a “murderer” for destroying a useful resource for his book, while also trying to express the pain of the memories that incessantly haunt and torture Vladek (159). The man already cannot escape the mental images of his past, at least let him erase the physical reminders. That’s just what makes sense man.