The Maus is outstanding for its remarkable ability to address the atrocious happenings through visualization. The engaging book is a useful tool in informing a story as multifaceted as Maus. Normally, humor correlates to a cheerful story. However, the Maus conflicts this. The story is a grave reminiscence of the Holocaust, which reflects the life of the historical life of the Jews (Spiegelman 12).
A number of times Spiegelman has been asked whether he would love to make a movie out of his comic Maus and the answer has never changed. He has continually turned down the offer stating his love for the comic. Spiegelman supposes that working on a movie would be like a deluge that he would not necessarily be able to endure (Spiegelman 18). For Spiegelman, comfort and satisfaction are found in working on things that he can easily placate. The integration of his hand work to print is a work of passion that started earlier in his vocation.
Various roles are defined in a group for formality and organization. Usually, these roles may materialize at a given time in a group and run temporarily or permanently. They allow for self-assurance on members during participation and sometimes come in place of other roles given to individuals in the group. The unity of a group is, in fact, a reflection of its solid nature. Many factors establish the cohesiveness of a group (Spiegelman 32). The harder it is to get approval to join a group, the more unified the group. Moreover, the aspect of completion of a group or groups tends to keep the groups more together, a tactic that glues the group and improves its longevity. However, the most cohesive are those which consist of very few members.
There are many factors in which one can use to debate on whether working in a group is better than working as an individual. These factors may vary from one person to another when named, but through explanation, the similarity in description eliminates the doubt. The features include and are not limited to information comprehension, domineering members, conflict resolution, assertive members, the rise in comprehension and responsibility of members among many others. A number of advantages that groups display over individuals who purpose to work alone can be clearly put across.
First, in groups, for instance, further comprehension and information are acquired. A number of people who come together to find solutions to a problem tend to bring more width, more than often, the intensity of understanding of practice to the table than an individual. As in the instance of the Holocaust, the author is seen to be highly dependent on his father’s narration, in order to pull together all the events of the story, with a touch of comedy. This is, therefore, limiting to the ideas and observations of the single author, and hence, the number of ideas put across are limited, compared to a case where there would be more than one narrator.
Apart from this, the second factor would be, people working in groups tend to have few members under the control of a group. Also, groups offer indefinite responsibility to its members (Spiegelman 56). Given that no member of a group is apprehended for the responsibility of decisions of a group, a wave of hesitation clouds the group on who can be called to account for positive and negative outcomes of the group. Working as an individual, however, offers one the ability to take responsibility for their work outcome as opposed to working in a group. In the case of the Holocaust, Spiegelman introduces the book as an idea of his father. Vladek is seen to express his worry and concern that people would not want to listen to that kind of a story. However, the author is determined to still bring it to the people stating that since it’s a reflection of people’s history, it would receive a positive reception.
The fifth factor is the rise in comprehensions when people work in groups. Contributions made in a group by members have resulted in the strong perception of decisions and the purpose for them thereof. This has led to rise in acceptance of decisions by groups. Hence, a decision that has been made jointly is usually taken in more easily and found more accepted than an individual’s arbitrary decision (Spiegelman 61). When Spiegelman decides to present the Holocaust in the form of comedy, he holds the meadow with him and leaves his readers with the ultimate decision to decode the story as one unanimously ethical volume.
However, there also exist many incidents that endanger the survival of a group. In the case of a think group, for instance, we are faced with the sixth factor. In a situation where the circumstances of the group exude the need by members to be conventional that group members tend to think alike, its purpose diminishes. Majorly, this occurs because the sole reason of a group is to bring in choices to a problem through sharing of varied skills, incidents, and methods respectively in order to come up with the strongest decision as the best solution to a problem.
Despite the numerous advantages groups experience over individuals, a number of disadvantages are also faced by groups over individuals in performance and functionality. The first disadvantage of groups is the occurrence of contesting goals within the group. Often, group members have previous attachments to other orientation groups or experience their divergent agendas (Spiegelman 77). Such differences may result in contradiction on substitute solutions and subsequent crashing. For instance, one person may view a story as a sad one whereas another is able to find girth in a story and obtain an entirely different meaning to it. As in the case of the Maus, the author was able to use insignificant intimation to bring out the fun in the comic story in various areas of the story.
In addition to that, the second negative factor of working in groups has been found to be the fact that its time-consuming. Given that individuals need to plan and organize group meetings then have to linger in wait for all members to turn up is taxing and tiring. The whole sequence of recognition, settling of interpersonal disputes and other unnecessary conversations are also contributing factors to the destruction of order in a group and dwindling of problem-solving (Spiegelman 89).
Assortment of viewpoints is the third factor that cripples the functionality of a group. A host of persons with a variety of knowledge and skills are likely to produce a number of creative choices and preferences on issues. Many ways of solving a problem are also brought to the table. With these, it becomes difficult to decide on the best available option or suggestion of a solution to use for a particular problem and convince the group that it is the decision to take to solve the problem at hand.
When it comes to implementation of decisions, it’s important that a group comes up with the best available approach to implement it. Contribution in a decision builds a sensation of tenure. It is in fact in such a situation that a group of people refer to the chosen implementation method as their own, making this the fifth negative factor (Spiegelman 106). The seventh factor points out another problem whereby, in comparison to an individual figure of authority, individual members tend to experience the need to give a perception to the public of how much work they put to the functionality of the group and therefore mark their existence., hence competition within the group.
Many methods and techniques are implemented for the purpose of development and sustainance of teams. However, none of them is easy to use. This is due to the complex dynamic that exists around working with people. Despite this, two major factors that have been proven to help effectively and efficiently work with groups include:
- • Understanding people’s limitations, aspirations, needs, and skills, either at a personal level or in groups
- • Keep working on knowing, understanding and helping the groups and teams, helping them through assessment and cultivation.
The Maus has achieved the major requirements of work success. To begin with, the author has been able to exercise flexibility in spontaneity, when he does the debates and comments on ways of bringing Vladek’s testimony on record and the type of animal to use as a representation of a person. This also helps to extricate a reader from the smug of familiarity with the book. He is, therefore, able to efficiently and effectively have the best representation of his work put across.
Conclusion
It is important to learn the advantages and disadvantages of working in groups and working as an individual for the purpose of acquisition of general knowledge on the same. However, the type of skills, creativity, limitations and aspirations of an individual largely depends on factors such as time, education and money. However, knowledge is the most essential aspect for the achievement of a valuable piece of work.
