Representation Of Swedes In Tobias Wolff's '

The Giant Mouse of Minsk was a Russian mouse folk tale that Fieval’s father used to always tell him. It represents the immigrants using their own talents, and customs to become successful in America, to gain respect and to fight for their rights as new American citizens.

During World War 2 the Führer advocated the killings of Jews. As a result, they were excluded from society particularly in Molching and Munich where the story is set. This is clarified in the novel through the character of Max, who must hide in the Hubermann’s house to avoid being sent to Dachau as he is Jewish. Max sleeps in Liesel’s bedroom at night before returning to the basement in the morning. Using the technique of metaphor in the line “The Jewish rat, back to his hole.” Zusak further validates this notion. The metaphor suggests that the Nazis viewed Jews as filthy disease-carrying rats who should be cleared from Germany. This is further evident as Zusak writes “He lived in the best part of Molching, high up in a villa which had been fumigated when the Jews were driven out.” Additionally, the metaphor shows the intensity of anti-Semitism at the time as Max being Jewish had to hide in a dirty basement to avoid death even though his father gave his life for Germany in WW1. This is an obvious example of the great extent to which racism is portrayed throughout the

The most important distinction between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom is man's ability to understand, reason, and think. The power hungry Nazis are symbolized as cats because of a cat’s constant starvation and tend to be stronger compared to mice and pigs. The Jews are symbolized as mice to show how weak they were and how they were treated during World War II. Spiegelman puts a focus on the mice and the struggle that Valdek went through.

The animals in the story were used as imagery for the situation. Each race is depicted as a certain animal, which displays their role in the story: the Nazis are represented as cats, the Jewish people are mice, and the Polish are pigs. “Its form the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice) succeeds perfectly in shocking us out of any lingering sense of familiarity with the events described…” (preface). Artie shares the imagery before the story to help the reader understand. “You're a Pole like me..” (64); when Vladek says this, he is wearing a pig mask, talking to a pig, so Poles can be identified as pigs. Each race at this time had identifiable characteristics that relate to animal characteristics. The Jewish people were hunted by the Germans like cats hunt mice (when there are cats, there are no mice). The Polish played a role that could easily be missed. Artie depicts them as pigs to show they were selfish. The Polish wanted to avoid fighting the Germans because they valued their own

In Chapter one, Old Major gives a speech about how the animals should rebel against Mr Jones, the human and leader of the farm in order to please all of the animals by having satisfactory amounts of the essentials. This rebellion would lead into Animalism. Animalism represents communism and how all animals should be equal. Old Major symbolizes Lenin. Lenin was a revolutionary thinker who came up with the basic concept of the Russian Revolution.

Orwell uses stereotyped animals to create the desired image of his characters. For example, pigs are used to represent the authority figures such as Snowball and Napoleon, and also the Communist Party Loyalists. Pigs have connotations with being disgusting and repulsive, and the term ‘pig’ is often used to describe a person who is heartily disliked.

On page six Swede says, “This place has an evil name amongst seafaring men, sir- don’t you feel anything?” This shows that the rumors Swede heard came from people he trusted, and they must have some truth in them because Swede has a reputation to be unshakable and tough. Swede also claimed that he felt something in the air that spooked

Maus has an interesting way in approaching a historical account such as the relationship with his father and the Holocaust. One of the most interesting aspects of Maus is the way in which Spiegelman uses animals to distinguish the various races within the comic

Spiegelman uses mice, cats, pigs and other animals to portray the victims and events in the Holocaust. He uses real features of human beings such as hands, feet and emotions to give the animals the full potential to relate to. Maus reveals that the characters portrayed as mice are being seen in sharper relief as human concerns in the world of mice. Spiegelman decided on interesting but possibly offensive use of different animals to use. The first type of animal which appears in this comic is the mouse (MausI:5). The form of mice is used to represent the Jewish people during the Holocaust and as of now too. The Polish police were involved in the arrest of innocent Jewish mice (27). The Polish people were pigs and Germans were represented as cats. The Germans’ appearance as cats began to make sense in the way how cats chase, hunt and kill mice (33). This comic book was translated into an easily readable format to educate the history of the Holocaust to the younger generations.

This one review made me question myself about my own opinion because i couldn't have disagreed more with the reviewer. He said “it was difficult to relate to the book and the holocaust because the author made the characters as pigs, cats, mice.”(mouse#1). So basically the reviewer is saying that he couldn’t see the connections that were trying to be made with the use of the animals as the characters throughout the text. I would have to say that i disagree with the point that the reviewer is trying to say, because the author used these animals as characters to show symbolism between the characters and humans. The cover of the book is a great expamle from the book to show how these characters symbolize humans.(spieglemen Cover.) The picture shows a nazi symbol with a cat (germans) in the middle and two mice scared down below, it symbolizes that during the holocaust the jews (mice) were scared and defenseless throughout the book and the germans (cats) were the bigger and more leatheal to bully the

This is seen most notably within the characters Boxer and the sheep, both symbols of the Proletariat, or the working class who had a tendency to naively promote and spread Communist ideas. On the other hand, the last sentence of the novella paints a scene where the animals of the farm witness a complete “transformation” of the pigs when “The [animals] looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; [but] already it was impossible to say which was which” (Orwell 139). The syntax in this example consists of several commas and the interchanging of the words “pig” and “man” to emphasize that the pigs have now become what the core of Animalism was originally against. To add, the repetition of these words elongate the sentence structure while building a sense of confusion and realization that much time had been lost for the animals. To illuminate, Orwell’s didactic tone is attempting to show that both the Russian government and their people were flawed, because when the citizens finally realized the true nature of their leaders, it was too late. The once oppressive, vile reign of Mr. Jones, or Nicholas II, is now no different than the current reign of Napoleon, or Joseph Stalin. Aside from the syntax in Animal Farm that outlines the ultimate corruption of the Russian government and their propagandist tactics, it is imperative to recognize the role of imagery as well.

Gunnar’s cultural assimilation is a reoccuring theme represented in the novel. For Gunnar, making friends with Psycho Loco gave him a deeper understanding of the multiculturalism surrounding him. Additionally, the experiences Gunnar and Psycho Loco shared enabled them to reveal normally concealed portions of their personalities. By exhibiting their other sides, Gunnar and Psycho Loco manage to uniquely teach each other about life. Pumpkin, who was a member of GTH, was killed in an attempted robbery of a Korean store. Gunnar and Psycho Loco share an emotional scene, “Psycho Loco was standing naked, looking at himself in the mirror. Eye to eye with his demons and crying so hard he had tears on his knees.” (Beatty 97) This is an experience that

Spiegelman’s use of animal imagery is effective because it leaves room to straightforwardly translate the significance of each animal’s contribution to the racial logic of the Nazi regime. In the graphic novel, Americans are portrayed as dogs, Jewish people are portrayed as mice, and Germans are portrayed as cats. These animals were picked by Spiegelman based off the traits each animal has that he found fitting to characterize each race. The Americans are dogs because dogs are morally correct, proud, and loyal. The Germans are cats because cats hunt, capture, torture, and then kill mice, which is

    I believe The book uses animals instead of human characters for a personification feel. They use these types of animals to make up the different cultures during the Holocaust. The Poles as pigs the Jews are the mice, and the cats are Nazi Germans. I feel that Spiegelman uses animals instead of humans  because it gives us a better understanding of what type of animals make up the different types of activity that are being talked about.

Throughout the story of Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, cats and mice are used metaphorically to represent Nazis and Jews. Pigs and frogs are also used metaphorically, however, due to their lack of relationship with the cat and mouse metaphor, they do not add on to the effectiveness in relaying the theme of identity being shaped by adversity. (Spiegelman 93-94) These pages are the only ones that the frog appears in with only a minor role in which he offers to share Vladek a box of food. The brief interaction does not add any significance to the cat and mouse metaphor seen throughout the graphic novel because the frog has no impact or change on Vladek, thus making the animal metaphor less effective. Another reason why the animal metaphor is also less effective is how misrepresenting the stereotypes can be. The pigs for example are usually stereotyped as self centered and lazy animals. However, (Spiegelman 92) the pig doctor who helps Vladek’s injured hand directly contradicts the stereotype that pigs are self centered. Spiegelman’s use of stereotyping and lack of other animals hinders the effectiveness of animal metaphor in the theme. One could argue that the lack of images in Night could possibly allow readers to miss information, however, pictures aren’t everything into understanding what is going on. “Dragging himself on all fours.”(Wiesel 101) This quote offers the reader a visualization on how animalistic the Jews have become, ultimately proving that Elie Wiesel's use of animal imagery is more effective than Spiegelman's animal