Diving Deep

Dive into our society and see that it takes a quick second to alter the way we depict ourselves to the rest of the world. Through apps that conceal blemishes to "social norms" that restrict one's freedom of appearance, people are more than ever self-consciousness of themselves and how people view them. Our lives start off as innocent infants playing with the variety of toys bought by our parents. We have opinions on absolutely nothing and our only incentive in life is to have fun. Then the teenage years come by where everything changes. Literally everything. From the way one looks to the clothes they wear to how they act, the teenage years are a whole new phase. I remember some of my friends from elementary school would act completely "fake", in a sense,  in middle school to become friends with a group identified as the "popular" kids. Now looking back at it, I wonder how we defined popular. By looks, athletic abilities, intelligence? Who knows.  ...

Chapter title page from Maus Nazi Propaganda. ("Long Live Germany") The comic Maus can be thoroughly analyzed for its symbolism, drawings, and allegorical methods of depicting the survival of the Holocaust. What isn't so obvious is the connection between the comic and Nazi propaganda, more specifically the chapter title pages.  There are many similarities between the propaganda and the chapter title page. Firstly in both, the swastika is depicted on a big flag near the center of the page and is very attracting to the eye in both illustrations. Additionally, the flag is very free as it is hanging loosely, unlike the freedom of the Jews. The jews are restricted to Hitler's rule and have barely any freedom compared to the flag. Secondly, in both depictions, there's a crowd of characters looking toward the flag. While Spiegelman most likely illustrated the page in this manner to depict that the lives of the Jews are confined by the...

Dive into a situation where every day was a good happy day. No stress, worries, or tragic experiences. You would always feel "happy" without ever knowing what it felt to feel the opposite. Gladly, these type of worlds does not exist because, how bad as it sounds, true happiness is not felt unless one experiences sadness. However, there is a limit for how much trauma one can experience. This limit was broken during the Holocaust: a life where every day was more traumatizing than the other. One simply wouldn't be able to imagine the difficulties the Holocaust survivors had to go through, but Art Spiegelman makes it easier to understand through his comic Maus.  Art shows the survivors guilt  the second generation feels because of the trauma their parents went through. He also shows how Art feels guilty publishing an article about the horrific experiences his dad endured, and then soon getting money from publishing it. The audience can truly understand the magnitude of...

In this society, comics are so often seen as novels that are meant for kids only, due to the numerous amount of pictures. However, what is not commonly known is that each picture, graphic, and/or sketch has a significantly deeper meaning that can only be interpreted at older levels. In the comic Maus by Art Spiegelman, pictures are used to depict what happened to the author's Jewish parents during wartime in Poland.  On this page, Art's emotions are explicitly stated when he says "I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams" (16). Art incorporates this quote very well into his conversation with Vladek by indirectly addressing the comic he has written. In other words, the comic he is talking about in this conversation is the comic readers read. Even though Art feels "inadequate" about his comics, he does a wonderful job depicting the tragic lives of humans through animals.  Art expresses the complex i...

Dive into a situation where when someone mentions "freedom", the first idea that occurs in our mind is not about being "free". Where the effect of having pure care for others triumphs the effect of making our own choices. Where we aren't so concerned about sacred articles like the Declaration of Independence but rather about the education for the new generation on how to think in a manner that benefits society.  Google's definition of freedom is "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint." However, after reading and analyzing the commencement speech This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace , I've come to realize that this is only one out of many interpretations of such a vague word: freedom. Foster believes that true freedom is "attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and sacrifice for them" out of one's heart (Wallace...