Maus Literary Analysis Essay

The holocaust was the worst genocide ever realized on earth, it left millions of victims

“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” These words spoken by Nelson Mandela illustrate how the refusal of one’s rights infringes on their humanity, and ranks them lower than not only humans, but even animals. Throughout the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, the act of dehumanization by the Nazis is clearly evident during the entirety of Elie’s experience in the concentration camps. In addition, the theme of dehumanization is also found in the graphic novel, Maus, which illustrates the life in concentration camps as well.

In Night one of the ways that the Jews were dehumanized was by abuse. There were beatings, “I never felt anything except the lashes of the whip...Only the first really hurt.” (Wiesel, 57) “They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed

It is the goal of numerous people in the world to eventually find their identity, or, in other words: who they are. Numerous aspects of life can determine who someone is. It may be through whom they meet, the things they do, or the events that take place in their lives that define them. In addition, a person may find their identity in their belongings or their family. However, in the beginning of the memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel already has a clear sense of who he is, and is mostly content with his identity. He finds his identity mostly in his religion and family. In fact, in the beginning of the book, the author describes himself as “believing profoundly”(Wiesel), which is synonymous with being a devout Jew. Ths can be interpreted into

Dehumanization is the process in which a person is deprived of their human qualities. The Nazis often used this practice on the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust as these people were stripped of their humanity, and many examples of this can be found in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. “Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even with these crematories…”(Wiesel 15). This quote showcases the absence of humanity in concentration camps. The Nazis valued the lives of the Jews so little that they threw the Jews into fires and gas chambers without any regard that those were human lives. The prisoners were denied of their basic human right, life. They were no longer humans, but instead they were corpses. While some Jews’ lives were immediately taken by the Nazis at the entrance to the camps, the ones who stayed alive were who suffered

Over the course of Eliezer’s holocaust experience in the novel Night, the Jews are gradually reduced to little more that “things” which were a nuisance to Nazis. This process was called dehumanization. Three examples of events that occurred which contributed to the dehumanization of Eliezer, his father, and his fellow Jews are: people were divided both mentally and physically, those who could not work or who showed weakness were killed, and public executions were held.

“Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” This quote explains how traumatizing the first night of the next two years would be like for Eliezer. In Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, he retells his horrific story about him and his father enduring the challenges of multiple concentration camps. Eliezer changes throughout this book by, questioning his faith, learning self-preservation, and realizing that evil is worse than he could imagine.

Maus is a story about the survivor that is Vladek Spiegelman. His son Art Spiegelman includes the interview process and the story of how the Holocaust formed the person that his father became. He went from a passionate, free-spirited young man to an angry, short-tempered man. The war had effects on Vladek that couldn 't be as easily understood unless the book was written and went so into detail about each aspect of his life. The complexity of Vladek Spiegelman is one of the main topics that is spread throughout both of

This is a literary analysis on the novel 1984 by George Orwell. 1984 is a more recent classic dystopian novel. Written in 1949, it's based in the future year of what is presumed to be 1984. It focuses on the life of Winston Smith, a member of the newly established Party that rules over a territory called Oceania and that is led by a man called Big Brother. This novel provides a rather frightening insight into a dystopian socialist environment. Although it is based in 1984, the social commentary it provides is most definitely applicable in this day and age. This novel analysis will touch briefly upon a few different subjects, such as symbolism and style, and the theme of the novel.

In The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman uses his style of illustration to convey the theme of power in his graphic novel. In 1980, cartoonist Art Spiegelman wrote the first volume of Maus. Before Art’s work came into prominence, comics had not been truly acknowledged as art. His work would practically evolve graphic novels into a recognized form of literature. Art Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948 to Vladek and Anja Spiegelman, but his family immigrated to Rego Park in Queens, New York three years later. His father, Vladek, was a wealthy textile salesperson and manufacturer in Poland. Both of his parents survived confinement to the Jewish ghettos and imprisonment in the Auschwitz Nazi Concentration camp in Poland. His mother, Anja,

During the Holocaust, the Germans deprived minority groups, especially the Jews, of human qualities, personalities, and spirits. The German Nazis treated the Jews like animals and forced them to endure abominable physical tortures. In the novel, Night, Elie Wiesel narrates his life during World War II as a Jew; he is compelled to be relocated to a concentration camp with his father, but unfortunately, he and his father are separated from his mother and sisters. Wiesel and his father face many situations where they are dehumanized along with the other fellow Jews. Through his perspective, the readers discover the cruel and disgusting practices taken against the Jews. For instance, they are compared to dogs, tattooed with numbers, and starved to the extent where they would kill one another for a piece of food.

On Sunday, November 29th at 10:39 am, I started the research about my topic. I wasn’t in the best mood, but I had to finish this research and find my answer. The first thing I did was go open up a web browser, Google, and type in, “What did Jewish prisoners work during WWII.” It took me to Wikipedia and there was a section on the page called, “Forced Workers.” It talked about how people were put into labour camps depending on different categories of inmates. The ones in the camps were called “undesirables” who were homeless, homosexual, criminals, political dissidents, communists, and Jews. Prisoners in the Nazi labour camps were worked to death. They had a small amount of ration. The prisoners who couldn’t work were killed and many died as a result of forced labour in the camps. Later on after the invasion of Poland, Jews over the age of 12 who were living in the General Government were forced to work under forced labour. Then all non-Germans who were in the General Government were subject to forced labour in 1942. After looking at this information, I scrolled down to find what the Jews and other prisoners worked on the camps. Then I found my answer. Some prisoners provided work in the German war industry. They repaired bombed railroads, bridges, or worked on farms. Most jobs weren’t on the camps, they would be outside of the camps. There was more information saying that later on more prisoners were working on the war

“The Japanese roasted their captives over fires, poured kerosene over them and set them on fire, burned them with chemicals, tortured them or cut them to pieces”(“Japan Captures Nanjing”). Like this brutality and the use of fear and coercion on prisoners in WWII be seen reflected in William Golding 's novel, “The Lord of the Flies”. This fear and brutality can be recognized in many WWII events including the Nazi Concentration Camps, The Rape of Nanking, the American Japanese Internment Camps and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In these first three events brutal torture, rape and removal of prisoner’s personal possessions all occurred. These prisoner were of the enemy race. The Nazis imprisoned Jews while

In the novel, “Night” written by Elie Wiesel, Elie shares his most personal memories of the Holocaust, which he experienced directly; during the holocaust he lost his family and many friends. The Nazis had issues with the Jews only because they were in different and did not have the same traits as everyone else. The German Nazis dehumanized the Jews by starving them of food and water but most of all the Nazis took away their rights as citizens. When Wiesel first arrived at the concentration camp and saw all the walking skeletons, Elie did not want to believe that what he was seeing was real. He wanted to believe that he might be dreaming a horrible nightmare. However, as Wiesel faces each day and witnesses the starvation, beatings of innocent people, and the tortures, his faith in God begins to waiver.

Cruelty surrounds the world constantly, and frequently appears in works of literature to reveal certain things about the theme. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, these acts of cruelty express and enhance the theme. One of the large themes revealed by these acts is “man’s inhumanity to man,” which includes the mistreatment of Jews by the Nazis, the common people, and other Jews. Watching the large amounts of violence, abuse, and discrimination that occur in this memoir show us the horrors of the Holocaust and how it transformed the men and women who experienced it, as well as those who caused it.