Experiences define personality and view of life. The trials people go through in their lives help carve them into who they are and will be in the future. Large-scale events have a high impact on a person’s life, evidenced by the lives of Doc Hata from Lee’s A Gesture Life and Vladek Spiegelman from Spiegelman’s Maus. Doc Hata and Vladek Spiegelman went through similar events in their past, and this impacts their present lives both positively and negatively.
One similar event that both characters faced was the hardships they experienced during World War II. Doc Hata was a field medical officer during the war, implying that he experienced the war firsthand (Lee 5). He tries to erase these experiences by living a seemingly perfect life, but he does not succeed in doing so. Vladek also experienced the war as a Jewish person (Chowdhury 9). He is drafted into the Polish army, and the Nazis capture him after a while. Artie describes that Vladek describes the war as the hardest experience in his life. Artie states, “Mainly I remember arguing with him… and being told that I couldn’t do anything as well as he could,” Art tells his therapist. “No matter what I accomplish, it doesn’t seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz” (Spiegelman 34). Vladek’s experience was hard because he participated in the war as an army officer. This experience affects them negatively because they live to recount the bad events.
Doc Hata and Vladek experienced the loss of a loved one at a point in their lives. As Doc Hata is serving as a field medical officer, he falls in love with a Korean girl named K, a sex worker (Klinke 35). Hata wants to comfort the girl and plans to live with her after the war. K does not have the same plans as Doc Hata because she wants to escape her life through suicide. Doc Hata refuses to help her with the plan, but officers kill her after raping her in the jungle (Lee 50).
Similarly, Vladek falls in love with a woman named Anja during the war. The couple faces many hardships together, one dealing with Anja’s postpartum depression after she gives birth to Richieu. In order to keep their son safe, they send him to live with Tosha, Anja’s sister, in Zawiercie (Spiegelman 49). Tosha finds out that the Jews in Zawiercie would be shipped to Auschwitz. She decides to poison herself, her two children and Richieu to spare them from a worse experience at the camp. The death of their loved ones adds on to the struggles that Doc Hata and Vladek face, and they both have a hard time moving on.
Doc Hata and Vladek are similar in that both of them have trade skills. Doc Hata owns a successful medical supply store, which contributes to the development of the business sector in the town district (Park 159). He, however, sells the store to James and Anne Hickey, who have just moved from the city to Bedley Run. This couple does not manage the business well, causing them a financial crisis. The failure of this business indicates that Doc Hata was aggressive and talented. Vladek also has trade skills, and they help him during the war (Chowdhury 7). When working in Auschwitz, Vladek used his trade skills to maintain relevancy and avoid execution. These trade skills affect their lives positively because both of them are able to make a living out of it, during and after the war.
Another similarity between the two characters is that they did not find love after their partners died. The second strand of memory in A Gesture Life relates to Doc Hata recalling Mary Burns, with whom they have an intimate relationship (Lee 30). The two have a strong connection, but it fades with time. Doc Hata does not know why Mary was drawn away from him. Vladek is also not lucky in finding love after the death of his wife. He remarries a woman named Mala, but their relationship is not easy. They constantly argue, and Vladek keeps pushing her away (Spiegelman 59). He does not have a smooth relationship with Mala as he did with Anja. As a result, Mala moves away from him, and she comes back later to help him when he is sick. In the end, Doc Hata and Vladek are lonely, because they are not able to find love again.
The experiences that the two characters face change their perspective on life. Doc Hata focuses more on being happy, treating people well and being at peace. He is now swimming laps every morning in his pool, being polite to everyone he meets in town, and going for walks in the afternoon (Lee 70). Doc Hata also adopts Sunny, treating her well despite their difficult relationship. Sunny has been angry and sullen since she moved in with Doc Hata. She becomes sexually attractive at a young age and runs away with her boyfriend to New York when she is seventeen (Lee 89). When they reunite after thirteen years, Sunny has a son named Tommy, and she does not want him to know that Doc Hata is his grandfather. Despite this, Doc Hata bonds with Tommy and teaches him to swim. He, later on, decides to sell his house and pay for the medical expenses of Patrick Hickey (Lee 101).
These acts of kindness are also seen when he buys James Hickey’s mortgage and puts his daughter’s name on the building. He makes this move despite being unsure whether Sunny would accept the offer. The war experience has a positive impact on Doc Hata, since he becomes kinder and dedicates his life to helping the people close to him.
Vladek’s experience during the war also affects how he lives his life afterward. Artie describes that he is obsessed with money. Additionally, he constantly fusses over Artie’s decisions, clothes and refusal to finish the food on his plate. During a dinner scene in Maus, Artie says, “…Mom would offer to cook something [he] liked better, but pop just wanted to leave the leftover food until [Art] ate it. Sometimes he’d even save it to serve again and again until [he’d] eat it or starve” (Spiegelman 43).
Vladek has experienced the hardship of being unable to get food or other basic needs. Therefore, he values such basic needs and does not want to see any waste. Vladek’s saving habit concerning food resources is seen to be extreme when he tries to return a half-eaten food, unpackaged food, to the store. When Artie questions him, he says, “I cannot forget it…ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb” (Spiegelman 78). He recalls his past experiences, which drives him to behave this way. Similar to Doc Hata, Vladek’s life changes after the war in a positive way, since he is now more cautious of how he spends his resources.
The deaths of K and Anja affect Doc Hata and Vladek negatively, even in their later lives. Doc Hata develops a unique connection with K and professes his love to her. He dreams of a life together after the war; K views this as naïve thinking. Doc Hata recalls his relationship with K, “I felt awfully young touching her, and the wanting I had wished never again to know was rushing back to me, a disturbing shiver in my fingers […]. I stopped everything then” (Lee 315). Doc Hata believes that K feels the same way towards him, and he rapes her while sleeping. After K murders Captain Ono, she pleads with Hata to kill her, but he does not agree. Later on, thirty soldiers take her to the jungle, rape her and kill her (Klinke 33). He is unable to forget this memory and this ruins his relationship with Mary Burns. This constant regret affects him negatively, making it impossible for him to show true and passionate feelings to Burns.
Vladek feels responsible for Anja’s death because he feels he cannot protect his family from their tragedies. The war experience is not easy, and it worsens after Anja’s postpartum depression and the death of their son Richieu (Chowdhury 8). As the man of the family, Vladek feels that he could have done something to prevent his wife and son’s death. This regret makes him incapable of falling in love again, and he ends up frustrating his second wife, Mala. Both Doc Hata and Vladek are unable to form real connections, because of the guilt they live with, regarding the deaths of their loved ones.
In conclusion, Doc Hata and Vladek faced the same experiences in their earlier lives. Their past experiences have affected their present lives, both in positive and negative ways. Some of the habits they have developed in their lives have been carved by the trauma they faced during the war. Their experiences have affected how they currently live with other people in that they draw some people closer and drift away from others. Doc Hata drifts away from Mary Burns, but he tries to rebuild his relationship with Sunny. Similarly, Vladek drifts away from Maya, but he has a good relationship with his son Artie. They both end up being lonely in their old age, mainly caused by the behaviors they adopted after the war.
Works Cited
Chowdhury, Arpita. “History Beyond the Frame: Exploring the Art in Spiegelman’s Maus.”.Journal of Media, Culture and Communication, no. 22, 2022, pp. 6–10. Web.
Klinke, Julie. “A Gesture Life as Traumatic Heteroglossia.” Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English, no. 3, 2018, pp. 30–39. Web.
Lee, Chang-rae. A Gesture Life. Granta Books, 2001.
Park, Yoanna, Ali Mustofa, and Fabiola D. Kurnia. “Recovery of Identity in Hidden Memory: A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee.” NOBEL: Journal of Literature and Language Teaching, vol. 13, no. 2, 2022, pp. 153-162. Web.
Spiegelman, Art. The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. Pantheon Books, 2011.