The Past and the Present

Sometimes, we don’t realize just how much we hold on to the past. It follows us every minute of our lives, until we begin to live around it – like we, or rather we of the present - are guests in the bodies of our past. One specific man who embodies this idea would have to be Mr. Vladek Spiegelman. In particular, on page 81 of chapter 4 in Maus part 1, Vladek rides his standstill bicycle as he converses with Artie about his past, in particular when he wanted to give Richieu away for his [Richieu] safety. At the bottom of the page, the author includes an interesting series of images of Vladek peddling slowly at first, then speeding up while standing, and then stopping. Most people stand on a bike when they attempt to go faster, however, when Vladek begins speeding up, he says “but his son remained alive; ours did not” (81).  This clever use of the speed of the bike shows off how Vladek is attempting to speed up the memories of losing his son, along with all the other trauma that he has been through – another way of simply avoiding the events that occurred. It becomes obvious that Vladek is trying to run away from the memories, yest despite how fast he pedals or how much effort he puts to speed up his story, he is unable to. This is shown in the last panel of his biking when he stops completely and looks almost defeated. This clever art style conveys how Vladek has no choice but to face the trauma that he’s been through. At this moment, he’s ‘stopped’ or given up trying to run away from it, yet he still seems determined to get back onto the bike and ride away again. Yet really, who can blame for wanting to get away?

Signing off for now,

Reality Sucks