Mack-Attack

This book really helped open my eyes about the Holocaust. I would have never thought of using animals to help portray the different people that were affected by the Holocaust. Having pigs portray the Polish helped me remember who they are and where they stand. A frog as a french person I didn't understand until it connected in my head that they eat frog legs in France (and in the US too).

The fact that this book was wirtten in comic book form amde it even more enjoyable for me. I hated the fact that it acutlaly happened, but i would reather read it with a lot of pictures instead of having to read boring sentences and chapters, which would eventually bore me to sleep. Art Spiegleman did a great job of being able to captivate his audience.

Ahhh, so we can finally see something from Art's point of view. It is a very refreshing way to see him, with his girlfriend and his seemingly perfect life. What kind of bothered me is the fact that Vladeck lied about his health just so he could get Art over to his house because Mala left him. That, to me, shows that Vladeck is too dependant on his family and doesn't want to do anything by himself.

Vladeck is slowly letting his anger control him. He got mad over having two salt containers open, which is something small. He also became very picky over what he is eating. It's probably because when he was stuck in the camp he had to ration out his food so he wouldn't eat it all at one time, but I feel that he has gone overboard in this case.

On page 29, panel 3, I like how Spiegleman showed us how small the mice were in some people's clothing. It added to the fact that they are scared to be there and that the person who was once in the clothes could've been a waste of space so the Germans just exposed of them. The marks underneath the mouse's eyes show how scared and tired he is, and also that he might be dirty because the Germans wouldn't allow them to clean up.

Seeing the shaded pictures of the mice being killed, tortured, or hurt altogether was stronger because of the dark shaded areas. The way Spiegelman drew it made it much worse than it actually was, in my opinion. Before we would only hear about what happened to people. Now we can actually see it.

After reading this book I have to say that I hated the entire thing, except for Yossarian and his defiance. Yossarian honestly was the only good thing about this book. i loved his defiance and the schemes he came up with to get out of his bombing missions and to get out of the war itself. I hated how everyone in the end suddenly died left and right (it's a war book, go figure). That was too sudden for me, because you got to know the characters and then suddenly they die in one chapter? That aspect nearly made me throw this book across the room. Also, he ends up being stalked by a whore who wants to kill him? That, i find very ridiculous, especially because he gets hurt a couple of times. he's in the military for crying out loud, he should be able to get away from her very easily.

Also, I still don't understand why the book is called Catch-22. It sounds like a new disease, all numbers, no letters. They mentioned it alot during chapter 40 (which was what the title was) but I still couldn't understand it. It's not that the book is hard to read (more like, in my opinion, hard to concentrate on) but the way it was set up I didn't understand. I even looked at the context clues but that didn't help me either.

Him running away is a big theme of this book and it is seen throughout the novel. He tries to run away from war and he is constantly running away from Natley's whore who is trying to stab him. It's like Yossarian doens't know anything but to run and scheme. He's constantly being given the chance to make a deal so he could continue with his bombing missions, but he either declines or turns it around to work in his favor. Yossarian is smart, but I find him a little lazy to be wanting to leave the war and not fight at all.

Over the course of this novel Yossarian wants out of the military but he can't leave. The only way that he feels that he can leave is if he fakes insanity, which he sets out to do. He keeps claiming that he's insane to get out, but that only backfires in his face. Because he's claiming that he's insane makes him a sane person, because any sane person would claim that he's insane to get out of bombing missions.

Insanity plays a big role in Catch-22 because one of Yossarian's friends is "insane". Yossarian only calls him that because he twists Yossarian's words around and it gets on his nerves from time to time.

Insanity is seem a lot in this book and it only makes me wonder why the author stresses on the insanity part of war. I guess it's beacause that's one big effect of war. Sometimes I think Yossarian is insane because he spent a good deal of the begining complaining that people were out to get him, only him because they were all firing at him. Yossarian, being a main character, is a whole lot funner than I thought. In most cases main characters are really serious, but Yossarian is one of my favorites only becausae of his humor. I really hate war books, I honestly don't know why I chose this one, but Yossarian alone made me keep on reading this book.

Seeing the mice hanging in the book practically made my stomach turn. Maybe because in my head I was actually seeing mice being hung. That is very disturbing. Anyway, the one scene in chapters 4-6 that made me laugh was when the mice were going to eat the cake because they thought it was real, instead of it being made of soap. Then they all had stomach pains that kept them up. That really made me laugh and forget about what was actually happening to them.

The worst part was that they could have been beaten or tortured just because they were having stomach pain. Art Spiegelamn does an amazing job at conveying how the people felt by using a lot of facial expression and by using dialogue. Especially in the scene where the mice who ate the cake were having stomach problems, you didn't have to see them to know that their stomachs were upset.

Adding italics and sound effects to the dialogue really helps me beleive what these people are going through, not that I wouldn't if someone told me a story about this. The italics and sound effects make everything seem more real, which is a little hard for a comic book to be able to do.

So far I like the way Maus is set up. I thought it would just be Artie retelling the story of Vladek's time in camps. I didn't think you'd actually see them interacting with each other at all.

The fact that Speigleman made them cats and mice works really well to show how the Germans really opposed the Jewish. Having them as Cats and Mice are the perfect natural enemies so it really brings out the hostility and the desperation of the mice. It just makes me think that the torture that the mice will eventually be put through might be worse if Speigleman ever  lets the cats act on their natural instincts. Glancing at the pictures they have before the chapters, I can guess what's going to end up happening. Seeing the Holocaust in cartoon cat/mice form makes it a little bit easier for me to deal with because the mice and cats aren't real characters, despite them being there to represent some real life victims/survivors.

Chapter 6 introduces Hungry Joe. He is obsessed with trying to get pictures of naked women, which end up backfiring for him because they don't come out right, which makes him want to take pictures even more. He then pretends to be a photographer for Life Magazine to get their pictures, which he was actually a photographer for before the war. He has nightmares and ends up screaming every night but He gets assigned more hours of missions added his nightmares cease until he stops. It is unclear to me why he is called Hungry Joe.

Chapter 7 introduces McWatt. McWatt is Yossarians pilot and he's the only cheery one despite being in war. he's so cheery that people think he's insane, but he really is sane. This leads Yossarian to beleive that he's the craziest guy they have in their unit. Chapter 8 introduces Lt. Scheisskopf. He was obsessed with parades. His wife and her friend slept with all the men under Scheisskopf's command.

Of all of the newly introduced characters, the one that stuck out the most is Major Major Major Major. Yes, that actually is his name. His father naed him that because of his father's sense of humor. Because of his name, he was ridiculed in school, even though he was a bright student. When he enlisted in the army, because of a computer problem, he was named a Major, which added to his name. having no friends caused him to suffer from depression.

The names seem important for the character's personality. Most of the names are long and hard to pronounce, while some a short and help describe the person. Hungry Joe for example, Hungry Joe suits him because he seems to have a hunger for seeing naked girls.

I also learned that the book is told from different points of view, which I would ususally find helpful, but in this case it's annoying. The story doesn't seem to flow because it jumps around from POV to POV. But I guess it will be important in later chapters.

In the begining of the Glass Menagerie Tom gives a monologue about the scene and the situation they're in. He seems kind of bitter about the fact that he is still living with his mother and sister, especially since Laura seems to get all of the attention from Amanda. He puts his sister's needs before himself, especially about the fact that he is crippled. "We don't even know she's crippled any more...But face facts, Mother. She is and-that's not all-" (pg 47).

His relationship with his mother is strained. Although, when she asked him to find a caller for Laura he went ahead and found one to make both his mother and sister happy, but he wanted to see Laura happy more. He didn't want to go against his mother's wishes because she wanted her children to be as perfect as they are in her eyes.

Tom hasn't changed at all by the time scene 6 rolls. He still acts the same way towards Amanda; they still fight because they have different views on each other.

Point of climax in scene 6?

~Mack and Mere

When I first picked up the book Catch-22 by Joseph Heller I knew it was about WW II, but I didn't expect it to be mainly about the characters in the hospital, I thought it would be about the war itself. Well, the book just started so I can't really judge anything. But so far this book is reminding me of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, mainly because it has the characters spending most of their time in a hospital room.

The main character, Yossarian, is in the hospital because of jaundice, which is a disease that turns the person's skin yellow after a period of time. He spends most of his time at the hospital either eating, talking with his friends, or censoring letters that go in and out of the hospital. So far he is my favorite character becuase he seems to liven up the place by making the people around him angered with his "innocence".

What stood out to me was the fact that on the first page when they first introduce Yassarian they repeated the word jaundice five times in one paragraph. It makes more sense to me to mention it once, but I guess it's very important to be mentioned more than one time in one paragraph that's strictly about the disease.

I haven't read a lot to put much more in this blog, but I just wanted to state my initial reaction to the book. So far it's kinda boring to me, but it's a book about war so something interesting might happen soon. Like, someone gets a flesh-eating diease or something. I can only hope.

"It was after we started with Gatsby towrads the house that the Gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete" (pg 170).

The only thing I can say about this is that I knew that karma would eventually play a large role in the rest of this story. In my opinion, both Gatsby and Myrtle were killed as punishment for their sins. If Gatsby hadn't messed around with Daisy, he'd still be alive because Wilson wouldn't have thought that he was the one who killed Myrtle, when it was really Tom. Wilson only killed Gatsby because he was convinced that Gatsby was the one who was driving his car at the time, and the one who was driving the car was Myrtle's flame.

This is a sign that Daisy and Tom have to be together and should be together, despite the fact that Daisy "loves" Gatsby too. In that society, it was really frowned upon to be with someone other than the one you are married to. Daisy has to suffer losing one of her lovers and now she has to be with Tom. It's what she gets for cheating. Tom also has to suffer because he doesn't have his flame on the side anymore. Both Tom and Daisy are left to suffer with each other.

Vocab

Inquest: a legal or judicial inquiry

An inquest was at hand once the mother returned home and found that her daughter had run away.

Ulster: A loose, long overcoat made of heavy, rugged fabric and often belted

Ulsters were very popular in the '20s.