For Wednesday: read the rest of Part 1, which comprises the chapters "The Noose Tightens," "Mouse Holes," and "Mouse Trap." Then answer two of the questions that follow:
Q1: How does Spiegelman play with the mouse/cat metaphor in the rest of Part 1? In other words, when does it help him tell Vladek's story effectively, and/or when does he want us to forget it entirely? Focus on a specific scene that shows this.
Q2: Why does Spiegelman include his earlier autobiographical comic, Prisoner of the Hell Planet, in the narrative? How does this disrupt the flow of the story as well as the style of the comic? Do we learn anything important about the characters of the piece to justify its inclusion?
Q3: When discussing the realities of life in the ghetto, Vladek explains, "At that time it wasn't anymore families. It was everybody to take care for himself!" How does Vladek document the breakdown of society in the ghetto and elsewhere? What makes Vladek so different from the others (or is that simply what he wants us to think)?
Q4: What does Artie call his father a "murderer" a the end of Chapter Six? Doesn't this strike you as a senseless and selfish thing to say to a Holocaust survivor? Or do we agree with him that, on some level, Vladek has committed his own act of biographical genocide?
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