Wise Blood Vs Maus

In the comparison of two novels, Wise Blood by Flannery O’ Connor and Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman, it is first important to understand the objective differences between the two. The former is a fictional telling of Hazel Motes’ world – where he is at a constant struggle to understand his own faith along with the battle against an industrialized version of religion. The latter, on the other hand, is a true account of one man’s battle through the Holocaust in the form of a direct conversation with his son, the writer. It almost seems criminal to compare the two, but when delving in deeper it doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary to imagine the similarities that could be found not between the two main characters (with the assumption of Art Spiegelman,
Sure, during the interjected moments that Vladek has while telling his story to Art we see a little bit of his relationship with his second wife, Mala, and of course parts of his story include his fear of losing his first wife, Anja, but all in all his story is mostly centered about his commitment to staying alive. In a similar fashion, Enoch isn’t too concerned with females of any sort. He doesn’t play that role and it isn’t necessary for him to have much romantic development throughout Wise Blood. Both he and Vladek, for lack of a better phrase, have bigger and better things to worry about in their minds. It is especially poignant for Vladek, who appears to take out the death of his first wife, Anja, on his second wife, Mala. Though he never directly mentions anything of the sort, he tends to do the same to her that he does to his son and nitpicks certain mannerisms or traits in just enough of a way to drive a person to insanity and it is so thinly veiled that even Art takes a moment to address the situation at the very beginning of everything with a simple “They didn’t get along,” after an incident about wire hangers vs. wooden hangers (Part I, Page
Perhaps the most interesting portion of the comparison between these two characters of two completely different books is the fact that any ordinary person could identify with either of them. Day by day, we face the same yearning that Enoch does to find that moment that changes everything, or maybe it does turn out to be a person. Then who knows, perhaps the same can be said that he or she or it will turn out to be disappointing and a rejection of beliefs that once were. In the same vein, there are people who are jilted by experiences that allow them to dictate the rest of their lives. We grow and are nurtured by these experiences and thus it is allowed to us the choice of allowing them to change the people we are, or perhaps remain the same. It is assumed that no one goes through the same tragedy of the Holocaust and therefore cannot correctly deduce what it would be like, but there are millions of undocumented occurrences of genocides and mass murder of cultures that remain under the radar. All of this comes from a point of privilege as a student writing an essay, but the message remains the same. Our human condition is a condition in it of itself. We are formulated from experiences whether we like it or not, and as much as we would like to say that we make our own destiny and have every drop of free will, perhaps it’s really quite the opposite. Perhaps we all have a little Wise