Study guide questions for Spiegelman's "Maus".

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Study guide questions for Maus I.

Chapter one –

1. Spiegelman presents us with the roller-skating episode from his childhood because  it foreshadows the story that is ahead for Vladek and his friends, who he is going to experience the war with. The cartoon sets the mood for the whole story and shows the readers that Vladek’s friends weren’t the most reliable, and they might not be his friends after everything that he goes through.

2. Vladek dated two girls, Lucia Greenberg and Anja Zylberberg. Lucia came from a poor family and she was very controlling and obsessive. She got extremely close to Vladek, when he wasn’t as close as she was to him. Lucia wanted to get engaged, but Vladek didn’t feel the same connection with her. Anja on the other hand, was a clever girl who came from a rich family. Anja was less attractive than Lucia, but as Vladek started talking to her more and more, he started loving her. In the end, Vladek married Anja. Art’s father tells him to leave out the story of Lucia from his book, but Art stresses that it makes everything much more real and human.

3. In my opinion, there isn’t any sense of what was about to happen to Vladek, his family, and his people. Everything seemed perfectly fine in his world.

Chapter two –

1 To get into trouble, Anja got involved in conspirations with the tall boy from Warsaw. She would translate his communist messages into german and pass them on. Anja got out of it by giving it to their seamstress neighbor, Miss Stefanska, who hid the package for her.

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2. Vladek and Anja travel to a sanitarium because Anja became very depressed after having her child. On the way to the sanitarium, they see a Nazi flag hanging in the center of a town and they become very concerned.

3. When they return to Poland, the textile factory had been robbed.

4.  Vladek leaves Anja and his child behind because he was drafted to the Polish Reserves Army.

Chapter three –

1. Vladek’s father tried to keep him out of the war by  only allowing him to eat salted herring, drink ...

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