How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Page Number). Page numbers refer to The Complete Maus.
Quote #4
“WAIT! Please, Dad, if you don’t keep your story chronological, I’ll never get it straight.” (I.4.84)
By editing his father in this way, we lose some of the “real”-ness that Art wanted in Quote #2. We lose his father’s unique perspective, his unique way of dealing with his past.
Quote #5
“But these things we learned only much later. In our bunkers, we heard only rumors.” (I.5.112)
Vladek can only make sense of some of the events after the fact, with knowledge he gains after the events. The story is often interrupted by such remarks when Vladek talks about other characters; when he introduces a character, he often tells us quite soon after whether the character survived the camps or not.
Quote #6
“You always pick up trash! Can’t you just buy wire” (I.5.118)
Vladek’s obsessive hoarding is similar in some ways to the work of recovering his memories and, more generally, the work of collecting Holocaust testimony. Vladek’s story is just one individual’s story, easily overlooked when history deals with the “great men” – Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler. But collecting these individual stories are critical to our understanding of the Holocaust.