No Cap

       Throughout the book were shown that the Dead family, for the most part is very well off. This is primarily because of Macon Jrs success and through the family stinginess, however for a family to get that level of money at the time there was a certain amount of luck involved as well. Macon is a believer in the American dream, and the idea that how hard you work and save determines how much money you will end up with. Based off of the conversations Milkman has with the people in Pennsylvania its evident that Macon Jr has been stingy since childhood. I found it interesting that although general he's portrayed as a miser he drives a 225 Buick from the same year. Besides that I think that money represents how Milkman and the rest of the Dead is extremely whitewashed by their money. Like on page 255 when the man who was driving Milkman becomes upset at him when Milkman tries to pay him for the ride and some Coca Cola. Milkman fails to understand that some people do ...

      Although America may have a rich history, it is tainted with several centuries of racism, institutional or and or social racism. We see racism imbedded in the way of life for the characters of Song of Solomon;  undoubtedly being an accurate representation of how life actually was, considering that the author lived throughout the period that this book was set in. You can first see a major example of racism that seems surprisingly normal to these people is the fact that the hospital is whites only. I find this surprising for many reasons but the main one being the irony behind a hospital of all places to be segregated. Not only because of doctors not showing preference to patients but because hospitals should stand as places of scientific achievement. Several pages later theres an example of institutional racism, with the naming of Doctor Street. The first time reading this it stuck out. It surprised me how hard the government would work to keep a group from form...

        Now that we have finally finished Maus I wanted to share my thoughts on weather or not it should be considered literature. reading the book, my opinion that it should be has not changed. I can see why the ease of read may cause some to believe that it should not be considered literature. However there are many other factors in the book that makes it a piece of literature. For starters the book is littered with many different motifs, with recurring themes such as smoke, or money. Although on the surface they may seem like pretty basic motifs, if you look deeper into the meaning of it you can see that there is a surprising amount of history and connection with Valdeks and other survivors story with these motifs. Another aspect that I feel  Spiegelman does very well with is capturing the flow of dialogue, usually between him and his dad. The easy to read storyline makes the book attractive to a far greater demographic, and the addition of pic...

       Arguably one of the most infamous parts of history was the Holocaust. The systematic genocide of millions of Jews is most often remembered by the gas chambers that took so many lives. Maus is littered with various motifs from the Holocaust, and one of the most significant was the gas. At the end of the second chapter of the second volume Art uses bug spray on some fly's near him, killing them instantly. The final panel of the chapter shows a fly falling to the ground, which casts an ominous tone over the entire chapter, and section of the book. Spiegelman's use of fly's in a way stands for the life of Jews during this time; from struggling to survive to being killed by a bit of gas, this depressing reality of the Holocaust achieves exactly what Spiegelman wanted. Although gas chambers are well known about, the pictures that go along with the book make it an even more haunting reality.        In the same chapter on page 70, Valdek goes into...