When reading Art Spiegelman's Maus,
I was reminded of Tim O'Brien's "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong." In
this story, Michael Sanders criticises Rat Kiley for his method of
storytelling. Sanders remarks, "the whole tone, man, you're wrecking it...
you need to get a consistent sound, like slow or fast, funny or sad. All these
digressions, they just screw up your story's sound"
(O'Brien 107). Kiley interrupts his stories with personal commentary that
Sanders argues ruins the atmosphere. In Maus,
Spiegelman includes frequent digressions. There are almost two stories running
alongside each other. The first story being Art visiting his Grandfather and
the second is his Grandfather's story of the Second World War. His Grandfather
interrupts the story, much like Rat Kiley, to comment on Art dropping cigarette
ash on the floor or to complain about his cataracts. The effect of a dual
narrator is created with Art and his Grandfather both telling stories.
Similarly in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" Tim O'Brien and Rat
Kiley are narrating. The digressions provide a sense of distance from the
events in the story. The reader is unable to become fully absorbed in the story
as it keeps being interrupted. Perhaps this makes the information easier to
digest in small chunks, as it is such a horrific subject that Spiegelman’s
Grandfather is speaking of. However, in the case of Kiley, Sanders does not
appreciate his interruptions, as he wants to become fully engrossed in the
story. By including the digressions in Maus,
Spiegelman allows the reader to get a greater sense of his Grandfather’s
character and how he came to write the story. The reader may assume that Maus is a true story as Spiegelman
features in it and talks about his father. Its full title is, Maus A Survivor’s Tale My Father Bleeds
History, which makes it seem as through it is true. In The Things They Carried, the narrator is called Tim, like the
author, but it is presented as a work of fiction. Therefore the reader can only
speculate as to whether parts of it may be true.
It’s interesting to note the difference that The Things They Carried is a work of fiction, meaning only parts of it are true, meanwhile Maus is much more accurate. Being Maus is structured as a cartoon it is interesting to know that it is a truer story than the accounts of O’Brien, since he is describing real life war situations and not illustrating such characters as mice and cats. However how Spiegelman forms his characters and their accounts is perhaps a much more intriguing and almost easier way to understand events such as the Holocaust and World War II. The general public can familiarize much better with comic books that may contain some subliminal messaging? Meanwhile actual or somewhat accurate accounts of Vietnam soldiers is maybe much more difficult to grasp.
ReplyDeleteI like that you made the point about Maus being more factual than The Things They Carried, despite it being a comic book/graphic novel.
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