Topic > Experiences of Survivors in the Night by Elie Wiesel and Maus by Art Spiegelman

According to the “World Holocaust Remembrance Center”, over six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in concentration camps during the Holocaust, between 1941 and 1945. After reading Night by Elie Wiesel and Maus by Art Spiegelman, it is obvious to say that both of these texts reveal the experiences of the survivors to make the reader understand the conditions they faced in the concentration camps. Furthermore, the authors invite the reader to understand how prejudice and fanaticism for certain political differences can lead to repeating atrocities. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayIt is significant to examine these biographies further, as the reader can see the significance these events have on a person, not just in the moments, however in the more distant future. This is a topic that is worth investigating because it is something that politically can arise again. Both authors explicitly evaluate the difficulties they face and the trauma that has left them grieving. Furthermore, it provides the reader with a lot of information about how family and religion become the most significant aspects of the will to live. One of the main differences that distinguishes the two texts is the way in which they are presented. Night is a personal memoir of Wiesel's experiences in various concentration camps. Wiesel uses vivid imagery to provide the reader with evidence of all the hardships and suffering that he and his fellow Jews went through. Additionally, Elie Wiesel explains the traumatizing experiences he had to go through as a teenager to fight for his religion. Additionally, we get to see how a boy deals with the loss of his entire family and everything he had in a matter of a few years. The vivid images make the biography highly pragmatic and make the reader understand the suffering that the Jewish people faced. Maus is instead a graphic novel that tells the story and experience of the author's father, presenting how his experience of the Holocaust influenced him in the following years. Additionally, Spiegelman decided to use mice to represent Jews, frogs to represent French Jews, and cats to represent Germans, as well as the Kapos, who were concentration camp prisoners tasked with supervising other Jewish prisoners. He wanted a melodramatic pulp illustration for his novel, hence the use of the cat-mouse metaphor with the use of opposition. Furthermore, an interview showed that his inspiration in depicting people as animals came from a German documentary called The Eternal Jews. In the documentary, the Jews were in ghettos, packed into tight spaces like rats. In addition to this, quotes such as “Jews are rats” or “Jews are parasites of humanity” were used. Additionally, the fact that Zyklon B was what the Nazis used in gas chambers helped lead to this decision. This is because Zyklon B is a pesticide made to kill parasites. Whereas parasites are wild animals believed to be harmful and disease-carrying, Spiegelman uses zoomorphism by referring to Jews as nothing more than filthy rats, compared to the rampaging German cats. Furthermore, further research helped Spiegelman realize the dehumanization of the Jews, which was at the heart of the murder plan. His intention was for the reader to stop and understand what was happening in each panel and why. In the interview, he also explains that some facial expressions represented different emotions. Furthermore, he portrayed the desperation of the Jews through screams, facial expression and body language..