The Evidence Of Guilt In The Story Of Maus

Artie has just gone to his counselor, Pavel, because he’s feeling stressed about his father’s death and finishing his second book. As he’s talking about his relationship with his father, Pavel suggests that this was the reason for his father’s actions. Earlier in the book, Vladek says that he knows that the survivors of the Holocaust were completely random and anyone could have lived or died, but he his felt guilty for surviving. He felt like he shouldn’t have survived, even though he worked so hard and for so long to make it.

Early in this graphic novel the reader encounters a tension between Vladek and his son, Artie. In the opening sequence the reader is told that Artie has not visited his father in two years, even though they lived very close, and details the status of their relationship. There are two types of guilt in this novel; survivors guilt which laid the foundation for family guilt.

authors use the concept of guilt to imply the idea that guilt has the capabilities to

Moral courage is persevering and withstanding fear through difficult times by doing the right thing even at the risk of danger, punishment, inconvenience, or ridicule. Edmund Burke states, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In many circumstances in Art Spiegelman’s Maus II, characters need to display moral courage in order to survive. Vladek makes connections and builds trust with those around him which is eventually what causes him to survive the Holocaust, but he would not be able to accomplish this without having moral courage. Vladek offers to teach a supervisor English which causes them to form a relationship and trust.

(pg. 39, The Perversion of Loss) He feels guilty about having been born after the Holocaust, and that his parents had to live through it, while his life has been easy. This strains Art and pushes him further away from his father, when he asks himself which of his parents he would save from a concentration camp he tends to pick his mother. This guilt is visible when Art is talking to his wife and tells her that he “somehow wishes he could have be in Auschwitz with his parents, so he could really know what they lived through.”

Vladek feels neither joy nor sadness. Although he did not want to kill another human being, he did not want to be killed himself, pushing him to keep shooting.

Even in a terrible situation after an awful thing that happened to Vladek and his family he never gave up on life. He always told Anja that “to die it’s easy” but to live people have to make difficult and sad sacrifices in life. Although Vladek did make many sacrifices, he never lost hope, he only gained more. Vladek never would lose his hope he would only always gain more every time he had to.

In the article “Confession within a confession: Poe’s brave new world in “the cask of amontillado”, the author places his opinion the subject of what happens in the story. The author points out that both the characters in the story are indeed friends. The author points this out to the reader by stating that Fortunato fallows his friend, Montresor, deep into the catacombs under his house. Another argument that the author states, is that Montresor’s’ reason in killing his friend is anger at his friends new wealth with his old wealth that he has. The author as well states that Fortunato is a fool in the story. Fortunato is dressed as a fool for carnival, adding to Montresor’s’ view of his own friend. Another point is that Montresor in his confession

Another form of guilt I see is from the Vladek toward Anja. In 1944, he and Anja left Srodula and moved to Sosnowiec. After they left Srodula, all their hiding places were temporary and unreliable. Vladek realized if Germany occupies the country there is nothing left for him and Anja in Poland and there will be no chance for them to live without fear. so Vladek tells Mrs. Kawka he would do anything to get out of Poland and Mrs. Kawka tells him about smugglers, taking people to Hungary. But as the comic expresses she was clearly involved. However, Vladek so eager to get to Hungary, he could not see that. Meeting with the smugglers, he meets Mr. Mandelbaum, an Spiegelmans who owned a sweets shop once along with his wife, and his nephew, Abraham. Vladek is not sure whether to trust the smugglers so, Abraham volunteers to go with the smugglers first, then to write if everything is safe.

Vladek’s sister Anja, is a European Jew which Spiegelman portrays as mice. Her first appearance in the excerpt, is when she and Valdek approach her son Lolek to convince him to hide with them. Spiegelman shows us she has hope but showing her with clasped hands held close to her face. When she states, “The whole family is gone! Grandma and Grandpa! Poppa! Momma! Tosha! Bibi! My Richieu!! Now they’ll take Lolek!”(Page: 1063), when she says this, you become aware of all the horrible things she has had to experience. Anja is a character who needs the support of Vladek to continue

The notion of guilt and innocence in an individual, the awareness of the absurdity of human actions, and the ambiguity of traditional values are all factors in an attempt to discern whether or not human nature is essentially bad or good. Camus exposes the morality of his own time and ours in The Fall with his sense of clarity and humane judgement; his belief that human nature is essentially corrupt erases all hope of humanity being considered virtuous. Dorothy Day was determined throughout her life to defend the essential goodness of humanity - she uses radical methods to convince others that the world is just and that love lies underneath all crime and corruption. It is my personal belief that the world is neither fundamentally corrupt or righteous; instead, that we have the ability to possess great variations in our emotional and physical responses to certain situations. I also believe it is important to have hope in the things that you cannot see. Essentially, these varying viewpoints on humanity can be boiled down to the difference between optimism and pessimism.

Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Pardoner's Tale," a relatively straightforward satirical and anti-capitalist view of the church, contrasts motifs of sin with the salvational properties of religion to draw out the complex self-loathing of the emasculated Pardoner. In particular, Chaucer concentrates on the Pardoner's references to the evils of alcohol, gambling, blasphemy, and money, which aim not only to condemn his listeners and unbuckle their purses, but to elicit their wrath and expose his eunuchism.

In chapter one of book II Art reveals that he feels extremely guilty about not having to go through the Holocaust like his father did and says "Somehow, I wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through! …I guess it's some form of guilt about having had an easier life than they did"(Spiegelman, MausII,16).

In the book Oedipus the King by Sophocles, there are many controversies on whether Oedipus is guilty of his actions or innocent. Oedipus is a guilty man and his action proved so in the play. Oedipus should be held liable for his crimes of patricide (killing his father) and marrying and having a sexual relationship his mother. Oedipus knew nothing about the past of Thebes however, what was done cannot be taken back. His actions were wrong because incest is unethical, and murdering someone is a crime. He guilty because guilt lies in the act of doing, not in intention. In addition to the prophecy, Oedipus is also guilty of hubris because he displayed excessive pride. The choice was his, and this accounts for some of his guilt. Oedipus is

But then Anja started to become a strong person because Vladek told her that, “He needs her so she needs to live with him”. After her personal history gone in past she decided to start her new life with her left over family and future family. That we can see in Maus 2 on page 114 in panel 3rd Vladek told that, “He wanted to stay in Sweden but Anja instated to be with the only one brother who survived from their personal history.” From this conversation we could conclude that Anja was become weaker emotionally about her family and she wanted to be with people from her family. May be she was scared of losing that person as she lost others. Then in 4thPanel Vladek’s status prove statement about losing person. Vladek said to Art that, “Anja started to die a little from death of her only one brother Herman who left from personal