In the comparison of two novels, Wise Blood by Flannery O’ Connor and Maus I & Il by Art Spiegelman, it is first important to understand the objective differences between the two. The former is a fictional telling of Hazel Motes’ world – where he is at a constant struggle to understand his own faith along with the battle against an industrialized version of religion. The latter, on the other hand, is a true account of one man’s battle through the Holocaust in the form of a direct conversation with his son, the writer.
It almost seems criminal to compare the two, but when delving in deeper it doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary to imagine the similarities that could be found not between the two main characters (with the assumption of Art Spiegelman, the writer/artist, being the main character of Maus I & II), but two of the supporting roles for said main characters – Vladek Spiegelman and Enoch Emery. First of all, an introduction.
Even by just the very minimalist comparison of their first names, Enoch being Hebrew for “dedicated” and Vladek’s born Hebrew name of Zeev meaning “wolf”. Both hold a level of devotion to family and to respect that is emulated very well in their characters, perhaps not always in the best of ways, but it definitely is an interesting observation. Regardless, their similarities do not just hold at only names. The two, in very different ways, both attempt to achieve the bigger overarching goal.
Both of them have stories that they want to tell someone else or that they would like to have told in general. Vladek is the less yearning of the two, but he has the story to tell and it is important to be heard, meanwhile Enoch is practically crawling on his hands and knees towards Hazel in an attempt to make him understand just what he is trying to tell him. Both of them have their own stories, tales that neither of them can really stand to hold onto alone any longer. Enoch lives in a world where he is unsatisfied.
He is in an everlooping strand of constantly craving, to the point to where he is willing to listen to a salesman on the street go on and on about some worthless product just because there is a chance that what the crook is saying might actually work and be true. He doesn’t take no for an answer, that much is evident just plainly from the way that he acts around Hazel Motes when they first meet. Enoch asks Hazel if he wants to head into Walgreen’s and get a soda. Hazel clearly states that he doesn’t like drug stores and insures a goodbye, but Enoch comes right back in with, “That’s all right… I reckon I’ll go along and keep you company for a while” (Page 46).
Enoch is a nuisance to Hazel and becomes the unwanted sidekick along to his adventures for many more parts of the novel. Similarily, Vladek isn’t exactly the easiest man to get along with, even when it comes between him and his son. Multiple times while telling his story, Vladek stops in order to address Art and Francoise, often being upset or dissatisfied with some sort of act that they, or Vladek’s own second wife, Mala, are performing.
It is easy to deduce that these quips of personality are as some sort of automatic response since his time in the Holocaust: insisting that Art’s plate is completely clean and that he doesn’t eat enough (Part I, Page 43). In those times, there was never enough and so it is understandable that now that there is more than enough he is passionate about not taking anything for granted. Despite this understanding, Vladek does become pushy and almost a bit of a nuisance himself as he berates those around him for similar motives.
This sense of dissatisfaction with life stems from two very different places between Vladek Spiegelman and Enoch Emery, and it is thus where their stories take either sides of the fork in the road. Enoch’s story is rooted in Wise Blood – a trait that he says only he has and it is something that thumps and prods and is almost an thirst that he needs to quench through something, that thing he’s not sure about yet, but he knows that he’ll know when the moment arrives.
He bases all of his actions based off of this concept, and even begins to get angry when someone else questions it and/or when Enoch believes that they are claiming to have wiser blood than him, “You act like you think you got wiser blood than anybody else... but you ain’t! I’m the one has it. Not you. Me. ” (Page 59, to Hazel). It is something he holds very dear and believes so passionately and wholeheartedly in that it almost becomes some sort of manifestation of another character, a sidekick for Enoch Emery himself.
In a much more terrifying way, it could be argued that Vladek has drops of Wise Blood himself – or whatever could be construed to be such a thing. Only, his is not only that feeling, that thirst, that yearning. Vladek’s Wise Blood can be interpreted into two different ways, either one can assume that he is truly changed based upon his experiences in the Holocaust which seems unfathomable to consider that someone could not be changed by that. Or, and this is what links the two back together, Vladek’s Wise Blood comes from his comparison of himself to anyone else that he knew of during the Holocaust.
Multiple times does Vladek insist that he made it through because of his own smarts, his strength, his will to live, but that everyone else who made it through day by day only did so by pure luck. It is similar to the thinking that Enoch has that makes him assume that no one else could possibly have that same sense that they do, and this braggart attitude is shared between the two of them throughout both of their overarching stories. An interesting factor that offers another branch between the two of them is the role that romance plays in both of their stories, and by that I mean the lack of romance.
Sure, during the interjected moments that Vladek has while telling his story to Art we see a little bit of his relationship with his second wife, Mala, and of course parts of his story include his fear of losing his first wife, Anja, but all in all his story is mostly centered about his commitment to staying alive. In a similar fashion, Enoch isn’t too concerned with females of any sort. He doesn’t play that role and it isn’t necessary for him to have much romantic development throughout Wise Blood. Both he and Vladek, for lack of a better phrase, have bigger and better things to worry about in their minds.
It is especially poignant for Vladek, who appears to take out the death of his first wife, Anja, on his second wife, Mala. Though he never directly mentions anything of the sort, he tends to do the same to her that he does to his son a I nitpicks certain mannerisms or traits in just enough of a way to drive a person to insanity and it is so thinly veiled that even Art takes a moment to address the situation at the very beginning of everything with a simple “They didn’t get along,” after an incident about wire hangers vs. wooden hangers (Part I, Page 11).
A point of disagreement between the two types of characters is exactly what role they play to their own individual “heroes” of the story, so to speak. Though for Maus Vladek is the storyteller and the one who lived the tale, he and Art both find themselves at a sort of war between themselves. Art is our link into the world, but Vladek is the world. On the other side, Wise Blood features mostly pictures of Hazel Motes’ life and we are left to wonder what function Enoch plays in getting him from point A at the beginning to point B at the end.
The latter has his own agenda and one has to wonder if Hazel is truly the way to accomplish it, or if he is simply a bump in the road of sorts, and the same can be said if you reverse the relationship and question just what sort of factors Enoch plays for Hazel and if he diverts his path at all into something completely different. For Maus it is simple: Without Vladek there would be no story for Art to write in such a way that he did.
Therefore, without Vladek one could assume that Art would not have reached the same sort of success that he did through telling his father’s story, and though Art does feel the pressures, stress, strains, and depression that comes along with telling such a story, he recognizes the success that is also brought with it – the most bittersweet of recognitions. As for Wise Blood, the same cannot be directly correlated between Hazel and Enoch.
They are on two different wavelengths that seem to run across each other every so often, but it’s almost a parallel story that doesn’t really affect each other in the grand scheme of things. Enoch still ends up as the new Gonga and Hazel still ends up dead in the back of a squad car, and it’s almost impossible to imagine the link that would need to be made in order to make the two situations a direct causation from each other. It is worth noting that in this comparison of these two characters, one would not automatically assume that there would be much to discuss.
One is fictional, one is an actual human being who lived. One is young and one is older. One has a family and one has no one. They seem so entirely different that it’s shocking to find anything that can tie them together, but once it is brought to light then that’s where the magic happens. In a twisting way, it is almost a metaphor for when a person is truly understood and when the layer begin to unfold to show off whom exactly they are, regardless of initial pretense. The human condition is a very interesting theme that is exploited daily in all forms of media.
Perhaps the most interesting portion of the comparison between these two characters of two completely different books is the fact that any ordinary person could identify with either of them. Day by day, we face the same yearning that Enoch does to find that moment that changes everything, or maybe it does turn out to be a person. Then who knows, perhaps the same can be said that he or she or it will turn out to be disappointing and a rejection of beliefs that once were.
In the same vein, there are people who are jilted by experiences that allow them to dictate the rest of their lives. We grow and are nurtured by these experiences and thus it is allowed to us the choice of allowing them to change the people we are, or perhaps remain the same. It is assumed that no one goes through the same tragedy of the Holocaust and therefore cannot correctly deduce what it would be like, but there are millions of undocumented occurrences of genocides and mass murder of cultures that remain under the radar.
All of this comes from a point of privilege as a student writing an essay, but the message remains the same. Our human condition is a condition in it of itself. We are formulated from experiences whether we like it or not, and as much as we would like to say that we make our own destiny and have every drop of free will, perhaps it’s really quite the opposite. Perhaps we all have a little Wise Blood that keeps us going and searching and waiting.
