Post #12

One moment in the first volume of Art Spiegleman's Maus that I personally found to exemplify pathos came in two parts. The first part comes on page 95, when Art is trying to find Anja's diary. Both Art and Mala are looking through the entire shelf, trying to find these diaries, when Art and Mala comment about all of the junk that his father has refused to throw away. "He's more attached to things than to people!" Then, on page 161, Art mentions the diaries again, and Vladek responds by mentioning that he burned it after Anja's suicide. It was an interesting contrast to see Vladek, who usually is the most frugal person that Art knows, throw away such an important part of the love of his life, Anja, and by extension, himself. To see him burn these possessions, seems as if he's throwing a part of himself away, and it's unclear if whether or not that's a bad or a good thing. Despite the fact that Vladek was still very much stuck in his past, with Anja and Richeu, the burning of these diaries shows the reader that he really was trying to move on from the past, and to the reader at that point, makes Vladek seem that much more vulnerable.