Face the Story

Society is an untamed battlefield where too often there are hidden motives and blood-thirsty predators hunting down people of higher position; the goal in all of this greed is power. But funny enough, no matter how much these people climb the social latter, their superiority will always fall short of  the top. This predicament is to none of their faults because the unbeatable power that reigns over all of them is intangible and unforgiving. It's identity? Time. Time never rests and flows heedlessly. No quantity of money can influence the movement of time, thus, time secures the ultimate position at the top of the power hierarchy. The characters, Daisy and Gatsby, created by F. Scott Fitzgerald were just one of many victims that were thwarted by time. Their differing social statuses had  prevented their relationship initially, but even after Gatsby had accumulated enough wealth to be considered of a similar status to Daisy, their potential had already faded. Whatever greater ...

Spiegelman utilizes Maus as an attempt to undermine the Nazi's antisemitic images. The picture on the left is one of many Nazi propaganda from the Holocaust. This image in particular features a couple that is likely Jewish, similar to Vladeck and Anja from Maus , looking for a place to hide. The Germans were rounding up all the Jewish people in order to imprison them in the concentration camps. In the background you can see a sinister-looking, black bird looming over the pair of escapees. It is accompanied by a swastika flag, expressing the feeling of Nazi power and control over all of the people. Spiegelman's art on the right (volume one, page 129) extends his cat and mouse metaphor to manipulate the propaganda in a way that supports his intentions of sympathizing with the fearful Jewish and to highlight the inhumane treatment towards fellow people. He changes the couple's appearance into mice, which in his graphic novel represent Jews, and exchanges the evil fowl fo...

Would you rather... live forever or only live until you're forty? Would you rather... live during a war or die before the war? Would you rather... be a survivor of the war or die fighting? For some the answers might seem obvious; If I can live longer, then of course whichever option lets me do that is the one I'll choose! However, this initial "obvious choice" doesn't always turn out as nicely as you would have expected. Living forever also means that time and time again, you will have to watch the one you love die and leave you. Living during a war could leave you subjected to hardships and unjust treatment. Coming out of the war alive doesn't always equal a happy ending. It could mean that you might face survivor's guilt and be haunted by the memory of your comrades' deaths' for the rest of your life. In the graphic novel, Maus , Spiegelman not only presents the drawbacks of life, but is also a victim of being alive, himself. Right off the bat...

On page 26 of volume 2 in the comic book,  MAUS , Spiegelman exposes the treatment that Art's father had to face after being captured by the Germans and brought to a Nazi camp using his illustrations.You can see that, although it is snowing outside, the Jews are still being forced to run naked and remain barefoot. In the second panel you can see that the Jew is hopping from foot to foot in an attempt to keep his feet from the cold ground. These cases are used to show the unfair treatment towards the Jewish people. The fact that the mice were forced to strip out of all their own clothing displays the German's efforts to take away each prisoner's identity, leaving them as nothing but a clone of the guy beside him. Another point of degrading conduct is, "They never even looked on what size they threw." The Nazi's handed out prisoner clothing without a concern over fit and comfort which further highlights one of Spiegleman's ideas that, during the Holocau...

"Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of." (Wallace 2) This statement is nothing but the truth. It is inevitable but everything you've experienced in life, you are the main character. Even if you didn't play the most important role, you can only tell the story based off of your own emotions and thoughts at the time. A realization like this is something that I constantly forget to consider, and as David Foster Wallace said, "we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: 'This is water, this is water.'" (Wallace 8) Simple awareness is key, and it is crucial to remember that although you might be having a bad day, the person next to you could also by having a hard time. A difficult as it is, it is necessary for everyone, including myself, to reach out and hear others' perspectives and to not only wallow inside your own world. This method of going about with your life will be the on...

This week was EYE-opening to say the least. When people think "America", they think of "independence","freedom", and "equality". We Americans thoughtlessly celebrate the Fourth of July with countless spectacles of fireworks one year after another. But not once has it crossed my mind that this celebration could, on the contrary, be a day of mockery to someone else.  In "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro", Frederick Douglass rips apart all these supposed characteristics of the USA that we Americans pride ourselves in. One of the key aspects of the holiday that the writer focuses on is how the Fourth of July only highlights the flaws of the country. The "great principles of political freedom and natural justice" (Douglass 1) that citizens rejoiced over were not extended to American slaves. I found this situation to be especially ironic because after finally declaring independence from British rule, the United States unkn...

In the 16 years I've been alive I have visited countless memorials. I've seen floating stone heads of various individuals, peered up at the massive Washington Monument, and explored the famous Triumphal Arc in Paris. If I'm completely honest, none of them ever truly wowed me. Of course there was the initial, "Oh my gosh, it's enormous," or , "Look at those beautiful engravings," but not once was I truly moved by a memorial. However, recently in English class we've been discussing the reasoning that went behind all of these designs and I think I'm finally beginning to understand the value of these works of art that I originally believed to be mundane, stone slabs. In war, there are endless amounts of death, and in many cases, there is no physical evidence left to show the damage done. Some soldiers are killed without a trace of their existence left. Memorials, therefore, serve as a material object that can represent the dead. What was even ...