The Third Act

What is faith? Well the basic textbook definition is to have complete trust or confidence in someone or something, but can completely letting someone in close enough to have faith in them prove to be the right thing to do in the grand scheme of things? If life hasn't shown you this by now then let me do you a favor, but completely trusting anyone or yourself can be very dangerous. We're people, we make mistakes and we all like to believe that we can trust the person in our arms or laying next to us with everything and then some, but like everything on this planet, if you put enough pressure on something... it's bound to cave in on itself and let you down. Pilate, arguably one of the strongest characters in the story was thrusted into independence at a young age and in doing so she had to have faith in herself and in her peoples heritage to keep her going. And when reading the book she seems to be the most enlightened one out of the entire cast and dare I say the most stab...

Macon Dead the third, or better known as Milkman has had a life most people of color in his city would kill for. With a grandfather who people respect even in death and a father well known in the community for being a main source of wealth among them, have unintentionally separated Milkman from the rest of the African americans around him. Milkman's friend Guitar has made it his job to remind him how different the two of them are and how different he is from their people on a multitude of occasions. Guitar asks Milkman what he would do if their city randomly became another version of Montgomery Alabama, to which he responds jokingly with "buy a plane ticket" (Morison 104) this only angers Guitar and he bitterly responds with "No. A man that can't live there. If things ever got tough you'd melt." (Morrison 104). To add some background at this time Montgomery Alabama was basically the racist capital of the world, and if you were anything besides a wealthy ...

We all have a hunger to be wanted, whether its by your friends, family, or even that special someone that replays all of your snaps. Having that feeling that if you were to vanish tonight, then those people would start a riot in the streets tomorrow until you were found is something people crave more than any meal or drug. Solitude of any kind that lasts more than a few months has been known to drive some people insane, but now picture being involuntarily placed in solitude while in civilization. Now before I explain myself I would like to inform you that this isn't a happy post and has no intention of leaving you with a call to action on how to better yourself, so turn back now if you came here looking for anything else.  Now when I said being placed in solitude while in civilization I meant that when people view you as so insignificant that you blend in with the wallpaper, in conversations your voice harmonizes with the people around you and quickly have your opinion tuned, or...

After spending another week on Maus, one page in particular stood out to me. In volume 2 on page 95 Vladek realizes he has Typhus in which he grows a mild case of insomnia by his disease always keeping him up and frequently sending him to the camps communal bathroom. He remarks on all of the not so lucky dead bodies that cluttered the floor and how he had to step on them to get across. Vladek truly believed he was going to die. His hope running on fumes as he explains, "Now I will be laying like this ones and somebody will step on me!" (Spiegelman 95) but Vladek's loss of hope wasn't what stood out to me, but the bodies in the final panel of the page. We are shown a close up of Vladek stepping on each individual corpse where we see the main three types of people there. More specifically the Mice, Pigs, and Cats.  This interested me because throughout both volumes the idea of stereotypes, racism, and prejudice takes its hold on almost every character in the story ...