Undiscovered Potential

While reading Maus, I discovered that every small detail had a purpose and contributed to the novel as a whole. If I were to have read it on my own, I honestly would've only gotten approximately 5% of the true meaning of the graphic novel. Every time we had a class discussion on a certain page it actually blew my mind how many hidden meanings and symbols could fit onto one page or even a single panel. Never in a million years would I be able to figure out on my own that a simple umbrella handle would represent the bars of a jail cell.

This got me thinking, this one book has so much more to it than it appears to have on the surface. But what if people never took the time to analyze it deep enough to discover all this? Would Maus just eventually die away as nothing more than a meaningless comic book? If so, then how many books are out there that actually have more to them than meets the eye? How many books are out there that we never spent time reading deeper and instead just tossed it aside as if it meant nothing? 

On a larger scale, I was thinking about this concept in terms of people. What if you had the potential to be the world's greatest basketball player but you would just never know because either:
a) you never took the time to try
or
b) you didn't have the resources to try
Or what if there was someone in a developing country right this second with the perfect idea to solve world hunger but we would never ever know because they don't have the resources or capabilities to put it in action?

Honestly, this was blog was such a stretch to connect with something we did in class this week but it's just something I think about all the time so I decided why not! Let's just write about it:)

Comments

  1. Ankita MahajanOctober 7, 2018 at 7:42 AM

    I'm glad you chose to write about this topic. At some point in class, I've had the same thoughts about Maus. If I'd read this graphic novel on my own, I know that I never would've seen all the subtle symbolism that Spiegelman draws into the pages of his book and it scares me a bit to think about how I might've read something so deep without ever realizing its true meaning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 7, 2018 at 8:39 AM

    I love how you thought about the effects of Maus and what would happen if no one analyzed it so deeply. It's so cool how you related this to the potential of people that may be wasted, and I totally agree with you that there may be someone out there that has such great potential, but he/she just can't use that potential. This was a really great blog and I really enjoyed reading it!

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  3. Lauren MonaghanOctober 7, 2018 at 11:47 AM

    I really enjoyed reading this blog and I 100% agree with everything you wrote. The symbolism is hard to pick up on and that is interesting to think about how many books could seem useless since people do not understand the hidden symbols. The way you related it to people was also nice and very true in society, which makes it almost sad to think that some people may have such great potentials, but don't realize it.

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  4. _d_October 7, 2018 at 6:27 PM

    I love that you shared your thought process for writing this blog post! I relate to the fact that it was sometimes hard to see the deeper meaning in Maus. I think there comes a point where one could read too much into things. While Maus is a great example of literature that is chock full of deeper meanings, some things are just meant to be taken literally. Of course, something so bland might not be easy to find in 11 AP English, *the* place to be for deep responses and meanings.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Richard LiOctober 7, 2018 at 7:39 PM

    I really like how your post elaborates on the reasons why we analyze texts thoroughly. I also think it's interesting how there's often much more than meets the eye in everything we see and do. Your blog post really gave me new perspective on the way I see the world. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

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