Sign Tutorial

Using 12 point, single-spaced Times New Roman font, with 1 inch margins, concisely state your sign for interpretation. Establish the text you're working with, the specific moment in the text you find interesting, and what makes it interesting. Remember- engineer a sign that has kick to it! Find a textual phenomenon that doesn't make sense, or seems out of place, or just out of ordinary. The better your sign, the stronger and more interesting your paper will be!

Offer a clear description of your "object of study," your "analytical focus," your "specific topic," your "sign for analysis”:

In the novel Maus, the author’s father, Vladek, repeatedly reveals his racism, in both hidden and overt ways. In one scene, Vladek claims that a black hitchhiker will most assuredly steal their groceries. In a less overt scene, the reader will notice that his memory of the race of minor individuals in his past is so keen, that he recalls that his son’s midwife was Polish. Vladek’s hypersensitivity to race seems especially disconcerting, given that he lived through the Holocaust, one of the largest and bureaucratic instances of racial genocide in modern history.

Well, that wasn't very long, but we want a short response paper; this isn't some 12 page research paper, so your sign should be fairly focused and specific.

Now you need to raise some driving theoretical questions.

If Vladek, a survivor of the Holocaust, holds on to his racist beliefs, what does this suggest about an individual’s agency in determining their individual philosophies? What does this suggest about the role of environment in fixing an individual’s biases? Why does Art Spiegelman hide Vladek’s memory of the race of minor individuals within the narrative?

Now name your sign- have fun:

The Quiet Racist: Veiled and Overt Racism in Maus

Find a few of these- they help pinpoint your argument!

Finally, build a dictionary or thesaurus (DTE) for your sign:

Racism: Bias, Prejudice, Bigotry, Discrimination, Intolerance

Veiled: Hidden, disguised, masked, cloaked

 Agency: Self-determination, Free-will