What Can Images Bring Us?

       Reality can be brought upon an audience within any type of image. “Why did Art choose to put the photograph of his father in his novel instead of drawing?” During seminar, this was a question that caught my eye. At first, I was slightly unsure of why he chose to include a photograph of Vladek instead of a drawing because above all... it was a comic book! Although throughout the week after reading passages in regards to our synthesis essay, the relationship between violent images and reality became more apparent.
       When the comic surfed across its darkest scenes, Art chose to display a real life image of his father instead of a drawing. To most, comics are just a fun piece of literature that don’t hold much importance. Although “Maus” portrays characters as mice and cats which may come off as childish, in my opinion it gives off more of a meaning than any other picture-less book. So in order to bring the audience out of the “comic books are childish” stereotype, he offers a picture of his father to flip the switch in the readers head that the story he is telling happened and is our world’s history. History and reality can easily be interpreted in multiple different ways, when not given a direct and clear statement as to why it happened. Think about it. When a new song by your favorite artist comes out, the first thing you do is listen to the lyrics in effort to find the meaning behind the song. Your interpretation might be completely different from the writers. Not that your interpretation is incorrect, but since you were not given a direct meaning for the song, you can’t fully understand the truth. When Art showed a real-life photo or Vladek, no other interpretation other than that his father suffered greatly from the war could be depicted. Images serves as “statements to the eye” (Source A). In this sense, a REAL image was shown in order to directly bring reality back to something that could’ve possibly been looked upon.