Question

Choose either Maus or All Rivers Run to the Sea. How do genre and point of view contribute to the power of Holocaust literature? Use evidence from your chosen text to support your answer.

Answer 1

Literature and the Holocaust have a complicated relationship. This isn't to say, of course, that the pairing isn't a fruitful one—the Holocaust has influenced, if not defined, nearly every Jewish writer since, from Saul Bellow to Jonathan Safran Foer, and many non-Jews besides, like W.G. Sebald and Jorge Semprun. Still, literature qua art—innately concerned with representation and appropriation—seemingly stands opposed to the immutability of the Holocaust and our oversized obligations to its memory. Good literature makes artistic demands, flexes and contorts narratives, resists limpid morality, compromises reality's details. Regarding the Holocaust, this seems unconscionable, even blasphemous. The horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald need no artistic amplification.

Answer 2

Answer:

An analysis of memoir or graphic novel and which is more effective

An analysis of first-person point of view or frame story

A discussion of themes found in the text

An evaluation of the power of the text and/or the use of images

A final comparative statement about the chosen text

Explanation: