When first reading this section of the book, one of the first things that I noticed, besides the reoccurring theme of darkness through out the section, is that Artie is wearing a striped uniform. At first I thought okay well maybe he was just portraying himself as Jewish, since Jewish people were required to wear striped pajamas when they stayed in the concentration camps. Then, during our group discussion the other day in class, one of my group members brought to my attention on how Artie feels like a prisoner of his own mind when his mother committed suicide. Whenever something negative happens in life, in this example it's Artie's mom's suicide, one of the typical reactions is how could i have prevented this from happening? or why would they do this? they seemed fine. I have noticed that we usually take the blame, when we don't have any part in a negative situation at all.
The idea of Artie being a prisoner of his own mind seems to become more relevant because as the panels continue, especially after his mother's funeral, the images in the background of the panels seem to distort and twist, as if his thoughts become distorted and twisted. I think that the most important panels during this whole section has to be the last three when it shows him in a prison cell. He basically calls out his mom by saying that by murdering herself, she murdered him mentally, and since she cant see his suffering because shes dead, that he is left to take the repercussions of her actions; therefore she committed the perfect crime.
I think Artie blames himself for his mother's suicide. I did not originally notice that the images in the background of the panels seems to distort and twist at the very end.
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