Sunday, November 2, 2014
Conflict perspective in Maus
The conflict theory says that groups of people (based on gender, race, etc...) will compete against each other for limited resources (i.e. political power, natural resources). Groups who have disproportionally more power will defend their resources and oppress those with less power. Conflict perspective is looking at things based on conflict theory, such as answering what groups are in conflict and what they are competing for. A common subset of conflict perspective that most people are aware of is feminist perspective. Looking at the holocaust through conflict perspective, it is somewhat obvious to know that the Nazi's are the group that is in power. The oppressed group in the book Maus would be the Jews since the Nazi's are in power. The Jews and the Nazi the groups in conflict since the Nazis saw the Jews as a threat politically and economically.
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I agree with you that the Jews and the Nazis are in conflict with one another, but did you ever think that there could be more than one group in conflict. I think another group in conflict would be the Americans and the Nazis.
ReplyDeleteAlso the Russians and the Germans
DeleteI agree with you on the fact that the American and the Nazis were in conflict, but in Maus, there was little to no depiction of the relationship between the Americans and the Nazis, while the entire book was basically based around the relationship between the Jews and the Nazis.
DeleteKeep in mind that two opposing sides don't immediately apply to the conflict theory. Yes, the Americans and Nazis were in conflict, but their relationship doesn't really apply to the conflict theory. The Americans and the Allies won the war- which may show that their forces were stronger- but they didn't follow up with showing of power/ oppressive actions towards the remaining Nazis.
DeleteWhen you say the Jews and Nazi's were in conflict, do you mean when both sides were fighting or when Hitler was telling people his personal views? What exactly do you mean?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Leighla. The relations between Jews and Nazis were far from conflict, as conflict implies a degree of fighting between two groups, and the Holocaust was not a fight. It was a massacre. The conflict perspective can be applied to this aspect of Maus, but only loosely.
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ReplyDeleteAdding to what Caleb said, the Jews weren't fighting, they were just trying to stay alive. Of course there was conflict between the Jews and the Nazis, but the Jews weren't fighting for a resource; they were fighting for survival.
DeleteI agree with your points. For your response I see that you posted what the different perspective would think about these situations. Which one do you agree the most with?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comparison between the conflict theory and the holocaust. Though, I do have one concern. I feel that the Nazis thought of Jews as more of a threat, like you said at the end of your post, than a weaker race. Hitler and the Nazis felt that the Jews were going to lead Germany to destruction. I think the Nazis felt more threatened when they said this, instead of simply viewing the Jews as weak.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement because it is true that the Nazi and Jews were two different groups in conflict. I was wondering if you thought about the Americans and the Nazi's conflict. Those two groups were in conflict quite a lot.
ReplyDeleteCaleb, I agree with you. I think you made a really good point about the Nazis and Jews not being in conflict.
ReplyDeleteI'm having a hard time understanding something: If the conflict theory says that groups of people will compete against each other for limited resources and the 2 groups groups in conflict are the Jews & Nazis, then what exactly is the limited resource that they are competeing for?
ReplyDeletewell part of conflict theory says that groups in power will oppress weaker groups to defend their advantage. In this case the Nazis were oppressing Jews because they viewed them as a threat to German supremacy.
DeleteI agree with Iris, because of the conflict between the Nazis and the Americans, they were both in conflict a lot like you said. But i think you should also think about how the Nazis could easily threaten the Jews but when you think of the Americans, they were across an ocean so it would be harder to threaten them. So i think the location of both groups of people had to do a lot with who the Nazis chose to focus on.
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