Chapter two, Book two Summary

Chapter two, book two summary

General overview

Within the start of the first five pages, Art Speigelman shows his life after his father has died and the journey of writing the book, he was expecting a baby soon and was feeling depressed. Speigelman grows smaller and smaller like a child through each frame by the business proposals and so on, to represent his vulnerability. He goes to his shrink and talks about feeling guilt of his fathers survival and his relationship with his father. Speigelman goes home from his shrink and starts to draw the next few pages with his father playing on tape. Flashing back to his father, when Valdek was older, talking to art about his experiences and then goes further into the time when Valdek was in Auschwitz. Valdek talks about his survival by giving the chief of the tinmen, Yidl, working in the camp, food in exchange for a guarantee of Vladek working as a tinman. Valdek shares the ways he survived certain outcomes such as hiding normal clothes - he was already too thin and was able to hide the clothes underneath without looking suspicious. He also talks about violence such as for when a man in the same position was claiming that he was German who did not stand yup straight enough and so he was beaten and finished. Valdek talks of Anja staying in the camp in Birkenau and his uses of connections to be able to save her from the chimneys. Mancie helped Valdek find out more about Anja and her survival and that was one of the reasons why Valdek and Anja were able to hold on and survive. Mancie was also reason why as since she had some sort of power, she was able to help Anja and Vladek such as providing food and help. "I miss you... Each day I think to run into the electric wires and finish everything. But to know you are alive it gives me still to hope..." (pg. 213) Anja wrote on a letter that Mancie was able to give to Vladek.

Main themes

In chapter two, book two the main themes are:

•   Survival

•   Violence

•   Love

•   Hope

Techniques used

Survival - "Ha! I knew you were an expert tinman, but I never knew you had so many other talents!" page 221, "Of course I fixed very nice the shoes, and the Kapo then was very different with Anja... Very different." page 223,  survival in the book is mostly shown by the used of dialogue and also series of events, as Anja and Vladek's survival is what creates the story.

Violence- is shown by the way the images are drawn and the dialogue used, such as when  Vladek gets beaten up by a Gestapo for flirting or being caught talking to Anja page 217 "so he beat me, what can I tell you? Only, thank god, Anja didnt get also such a beating. She wouldn't live."

Love - "Just seeing you again gives me stength." page 216 the love that Vladek and Anja shares with each other adds to the luck of their survival and they were able to keep strong for each other.

Hope - Hope is found in the overall atmosphere and dialogue of the book, as you would think that Valdek is such a lucky person, the good always comes to him so you might not be able to understand what really happened for him to have so much hope. "And the Jews lived always with hope." page 233 they hoped for the Russians to come earlier and to stop their death from coming.

How are those techniques effective?

 The techniques are effective in many ways such as how the novel creates a sense of hope for Vladek’s life within the Holocaust. There was also a sense of luck, love, survival and violence within the book. Although the techniques for violence are not all as successful in the book since it is hard for the readers to understand and picture what it would have been like. Valdeks survival was full of luck giving the readers a sense of hope and readers may expect that if they were in the Holocaust, they all would have survived. But they are wrong. Shown at the start of the chapter, Arts shrink says the death was random. The techniques help create a hook that drags the reader deeper and deeper into