Vladek's Duo-Specific Relationship In Maus

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Finally, the most common way that Spiegelman uses his art to portray time more clearly is by extending the panel length and adding dialogue to show a longer amount of time passed. This is sometimes shown very obviously in a duo-specific relationship between an image and a piece of dialogue or narration (McCloud 153). This can be seen in Maus II when they are standing outside being counted in the appel. The panel is very long and has a lot of narration on it. It depicts rows of people being counted, and the narration box explains that they would sometimes stand out there all night (Spiegelman Maus II 50). This specific panel is long in order to be accurate to Vladek’s story of the appel. Notes of Vladek’s description of the appel have a major emphasis on how long the appel often took. “In the morning it went more fast, but …show more content…

Because Vladek spoke so much about how long they had to wait outside during the appels, Spiegelman made sure to touch on that in creation of this graphic novel by lengthening the panel to make it take up more time. Also, the fact that this is a duo-specific relationship plays a big part in the clarity of the graphic novel as well. These word-text relationships help to clarify what is happening because they both explain each other, so they are very straightforward. The lengthening of panels is also shown in less obvious ways, such as when Vladek explains how there was no room to sleep. Even though there is no dialogue, we can still understand that it is meant to portray a long night because of the panel length and the agony portrayed in some of the prisoner’s expressions- which goes back to panel content dictating timing (Spiegelman Maus II 30). In both lengthening panels and adding dialogue, Spiegelman is able to accurately show the passing of time through his art as Vladek explained it to him. His ability to “control” time also creates a clearer narrative for the reader to

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