The Amazing Response to The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier and Clay

My Reaction to the First Half of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

2009-12-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

I cannot say that I have ever read a book quite like this one before. The plot starts off as an adventure of sorts as Joe escapes to America, transforming into a story encompassing the American Dream as Sam and Joe rise to success, and then to a romance as Joe falls in love with Rosa Saks and Sam questions his own sexual interests. The constant chronological jumps add even more variety to this mix, creating an unpredictable nature to the novel. Overall, despite its staggering length, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay manages to keep the plot interesting by constantly introducing new elements frequently.

The characters themselves are interesting, and each undergo development at different stages of the novel. Initially, the clear focus of the story is Joe, and Sam is more of a background element. Once Joe is fleshed out to a satisfying degree, the book focuses more on the more mysterious Sam, as his mind is not really taken into account until he starts feeling lonely in the shadow of Joe, who now has a girlfriend that he frequently sees. Backing up the main characters is an equally well thought out supporting cast. The American Nazi Carl Ebling is a minor character that Joe simply meets by chance, after destroying his office in anger. In an attempt to exact revenge, Ebling gives the Empire Building a fake bomb scare, that Joe doesn't buy. The event is so much as mentioned in the news paper. Ebling later takes this desire for revenge way too far, becoming the Saboteur, the opposite of the Escapist, as he claims that he is a master of infiltration. He attempts to injure Joe with a pipe bomb, but the plan backfires, and Ebling himself takes the blunt of the explosion. His inclusion as a character is both humorous and depressing, as his actions yield no positive results for him, but the degree to which he works himself up is quite comical. The other characters are as or more complex and interesting, and it is a joy to watch them interact with each other. While the beginning of the novel is more event based, it gradually shifts to a character centric story, focusing on the frequent and interesting interactions between several well crafted characters. I simply enjoy reading this book, because much like Ebling, it is serious, but it has comical overtones. The plot never stays in the same groove to the point of becoming stale, and overall, it was a very interesting read, that stimulated many thoughts as I read it.

Minor Characters, and How They Affect the Story

2009-12-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

There are several characters that enter in and out of Sam and Joe's lives, and a lot of them play large roles in their decisions. In this entry, I will talk in particular about Rosa Saks, and Bernard Kornblum.

While not exactly a minor character, Rosa Saks plays a large supporting role in the both the lives of Sam and Joe. Her first meeting with the cousins was abrupt and awkward: Joe saw her naked in bed as he was trying to break into an apartment. He runs into her again later at a party, where she recognizes him, but cannot quite remember how. They introduce themselves, and after a few minutes of discussion, a cry for help is heard. Joe immediately runs downstairs to see Salvador Dali's head stuck in a helmet of a diving. Joe immediately sets to work, twisting a bolt off with the screwdriver component of his knife, saving Salvador's life. Recognizing Joe's quick and serious action, Rosa remembers where she had met him before. She asks him to her art studio, which is actually her room. It is here that she truly connect with Joe, and they start a relationship. Prior to this event, Joe had been working non-stop on his job. Now that he had a girlfriend, he could truly lay back, relax a little bit, and enjoy life more. She directly inspires Joe to focus more on surreal art, as opposed to his previous, harsher and more systematic style. This refueled Joe's passion for art and drawing comics, as he was exploring a fascinating new outlet. Later again, Rosa sympathizes with Sam's loneliness, and suggests that he get himself a girlfriend. Under this pressure and emptiness, Sam decides to take his first available chance at a relationship, which happens to be with Tracy Bacon. This leads to Sam exploring his sexuality throughout the novel. Rosa opens both men up, and builds them up from within, ultimately making them both stronger.

Bernard Kornblum was Joe's childhood instructor in the art of escapism. Joe was intrigued by Houdini and magic in general, and decided to pursue learning about both. After several trial and error instructors, Joe finally settles upon the old, and vastly experienced Kornblum. Kornblum employs a very gradual, deliberate form of training upon Joe, making it clear that he needs to be serious about becoming an escape artist. He eventually presents Joe with a lock picking kit, telling him that he can keep it if he can remove a series of locks from a chair that Kornblum is chained to. Joe is successful, and after more practice with the tools, he becomes determined to prove him self to a society of magicians he has been trying to make it into. After a near death experience when his stunt goes wrong, Kornblum is convinced that Joe is trying to escape in a much more metaphorical sense than a physical one. Later, when Joe fails to make it out of Prague after his family gave up all that they owned, he has nowhere else to turn, so he visits Kornblum seeking help. They devise a complex plan that eventually does get Joe to America. Joe is thankful towards Kornblum, and respects him in a high manner. He is well aware that he is only in America now due to Kornblum's assistance, both in escaping and building Joe into a stronger, wiser man.

Sam: Foreshadowing and Further Development

2009-12-11T09:22:00.000-08:00

In a plot twist that was sudden, but not entirely unexpected, Sam kisses another man (Tracy Bacon). This event employed heavy foreshadowing, as Sam is shown to be unclear about his sexual identity. Sam had often been lonely earlier in the book, and his lack of a companion became even more apparent when his cousin, Joe, got a girlfriend, Rosa Saks. Sam admitted to himself that was Rosa was in fact, very attractive, but he just didn't feel any emotion or desire towards her. He says that he tried to imagine kissing her, but wasn't stimulated in the least. This doesn't necessarily make him gay, but it makes apparent his lack of interest in women. Earlier in the book, Sam was shocked upon discovering two men kissing in the food cabinet at a party. He saw that these men actually had a tender moment, which he had not previously believed possible in a homosexual relationship. He didn't show any signs of disapproval upon stumbling into this scene, and instead took this discovery into account. Much earlier in the book, while Sam is recalling his childhood and his relations with his father, who was a muscleman whose stage name was The Mighty Molecule. He and his father entered a sauna at one point, and Sam saw his dad naked. Instead of being embarrassed, he sort of admired his father's figure, and found himself unintentionally staring at his father's genitalia. This sets up Sam's character leading up to him meeting Tracy Bacon.

Tracy Bacon is an actor that was hired to play the Escapist on a radio program. Sam describes him as being a big, bulky, and admittedly handsome man, that strongly resembled the Escapist both in voice and looks. Bacon later pulls Sam aside to ask him how he could improve his voice for the Escapist, and Sam takes a moment to establish that he had never really been addressed by a man of Bacon's appearance. They later go to a bar and get mildly drunk. While Sam is drunk, he subconsciously invites Bacon to his mother's house for dinner, in Joe's absence. Sam's mother isn't quite sure how to take this, and when Sam says that he think Tracy will do well as the Escapist, his mother replies with, "Will he? (313)" She looks him directly in the eyes upon saying this, and I believe that she is implying to Sam that she has a deeper knowledge of the situation, and that she might even have foreseen the impending relationship between Sam and Tracy.

In the scene where Sam does kiss Tracy, he starts off working a volunteer service for the army, in which he monitors the planes taking off and landing from the top floor of the Empire Building. He thinks about how truly lonely he is up in his solitary post, as a storm approaches. Sam then notices the elevator rising, and out comes Bacon holding some bags that smell of food. At first, Sam tells him to leave, but then changes his mind and insists that Bacon stays. Bacon then proceeds to tell Sam about his fight with his girlfriend while he was eating at her house. She thought he was going to propose to her, but when he didn't, she threw a fit. Bacon then decided to take the food with him as he left, claiming, "Well, it was just sitting there. (351)" Upon further inquiry as to why Bacon came to Sam, he replied , "Well, you were just sitting here. (351)" The food was really nice, and Bacon had also brought wine. As he and Sam eat together at a table, a cliche romantic scene is set up, as the two are alone, in a fascinating location, as the building is now encased in the storm. Suddenly, Bacon kisses Sam while he discusses the lightning rods on the building. Sam initially thinks about everything that is wrong with this action, but then finds himself kissing Bacon back.

This moment was about halfway through the book, and had quite a bit of build up. At the beginning of the book, about 50 pages are spent discussing Joe's childhood, while one page is spent introducing Sam on the second page of the novel. It is very brief, and doesn't reveal much about Sam at all. After Joe is thoroughly developed, the story takes more time to discuss Sam, and his feelings of loneliness and emptiness. It becomes clear that Sam will do what ever is necessary to fill this void in his life, regardless of what the public thinks of it. Sam himself is unsure of his sexual preferences, and seems to be acting more on impulse than rational thought. I had previously stated that Sam seemed to be very uninteresting in the shadow of his cousin Joe, but now that his mind has been explored through the novel, I find that both characters are equally important to the plot.

Rhetoric Study

2009-12-10T19:30:00.001-08:00

Throughout The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon tends to apply ethos to his appeals, mostly in the form of similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and strong description in general. The book spends a lot of time exploring Joe's sad past, and how it adds structure to his motives and influences his decisions. The following excerpt describes an escape act gone wrong from his childhood, in which he almost drowned while trying to escape from a bag underwater.

"Three and a half minutes after he (Joe) had tumbled into the river, kicking his feet in their heavy shoes and two pairs of socks, he burst to the surface. Only Kornblum's breathing exercises had kept him from exhaling every last atom of oxygen in his lungs the instant he hit the water. Gasping now, he clambered up the embankment and crawled on his hands and knees toward the hissing brazier. The smell of coal was like the odor of hot bread, of warm summer pavement. He sucked up deep barrelfuls of air. The world seemed to pour in through his lungs: Spidery trees, fog, the flickering lamps strung across the bridge, a light burning in Kepler's old tower in the Klementinum. Abruptly, he was sick, and spat up something bitter and shameful and hot. He wiped his lips with the sleeve of his wet wool shirt, and felt a little better. Then he realized that his brother had disappeared. Shivering, he stood up, his clothes hanging heavy as chain mail, and saw Thomas in the shadow of the bridge, beneath the carved figure of Bruncvik, chopping clumsily at the water, paddling, gasping, drowning. (36)"

This passage in particular has a strong emotional base, as the protagonist, Joe, almost dies, and then as he witnesses and saves his brother from drowning. Chabon frequently uses strong descriptive words in a rapid-fire fashion, such as, "Bitter and shameful and hot," and, "Paddling, gasping, drowning." While not exactly repetition, this barrage of information leaves and impression, as the reader processes several ideas all at once. Similes are also used in excess, as the weight of his wet clothing is compared to that of chain mail, creating a very realistic feel of the scene, as the reader can "feel" the weight that Chabon is describing. Throughout the entire book, these similes help explore unusual feelings and ideas, materialize them, and make them much more palatable. Also present, and often in accordance with the similes, is hyperbole. While it is clear that Joe wouldn't expel every single oxygen molecule from his body upon hitting the frigid water, it creates a sense of suffocation in the reader, in that they can imagine their own lungs emptying in a similar fashion. Chabon also spends a lot of time describing the surrounding elements of a scene when he finds it to be of importance, which is used in this passage to temporarily shift the focus of the situation. This creates a lull in the progression of the story, as Joe regains his senses and takes in his surroundings. The reader is also drawn into this distraction, and allowed to forget, along with Joe, about Thomas. The alarm that Joe experiences as he notices that Thomas is missing is amplified by the calm observance that took place during the preceding sentences. When all these devices come together, the reader becomes thoroughly drawn into the situations that the characters face, and makes them easier for the reader to connect to and relate with.

Another minor example of rhetoric would be Chabon's occasional use of allusion, on both obvious and slightly more complex planes. The novel frequently refers to people and ideas that actually exist in real life, such as Superman, Batman, Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, and Citizen Kane. In effect, this creates a tangible universe, that is hardly different than the real world. The world that Chabon creates can be viewed as a large scale allusion to reality, save for a few minor adjustments. He successfully creates a surreal sense of interaction, as his fictionalized characters interact with real people, and both seem equally lifelike.

Image Study

2009-12-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

Empire Building

The Empire State Building serves as a consistent symbol throughout the novel, as Joe and Sam work their way to eventually obtaining a floor in this famous structure. The tower itself stands out immensely among the much smaller buildings that immediately surround it, reflecting the vast success of its inhabitants over the masses. Joe and Sam start off at the bottom, with nothing carrying them forward other than their own determination and enthusiasm. As they progress, Joe and Sam move up both literally and figuratively, expanding their workforce and offices as they grow more popular. This climb to the top reaches its zenith as they look over the world from high above the city, in their luxurious and spacious new office complex.

The Escapist

Having obtained a grudge against Germany due to the invasion of his homeland, Joe uses his incredibly successful comic superhero, the Escapist, to convey his thoughts. The image above is from the cover of Sam and Joe's first comic book attempt, which was published in spite of possible controversy. Several times throughout the novel, Joe refuses to censor or alter the work that he has already finished and thought out. Joe is well aware that he has no real power over the war in Europe, but for a good while he is content with abstracting his vengeance through conveying the destruction of the Nazis in the universe he created. He later realizes the futility of his imaginary war, but is convinced that he had created his message, and secretly hoped that one day Hitler himself would see the picture.

Luna Moth

Later in the novel, Joe falls in love with Rosa Saks, an unusual but beautiful woman. Upon entering her room, he saw a multitude of moths scattered throughout the room. Rosa says that she isn't sure why there are so many moths in the upper portion of her house. Later again, Joe notices a crowd of people gathered around a caged tree while he is walking through the city. Upon closer inspection, he sees a luna moth (pictured above), and notes its strange beauty. Joe then whispers "Rosa" under his breath, and the moth flies off as he finishes the name. This leads to Joe making a connection between Rosa and moths, as both have an unorthodox elegance that requires a certain mindset to truly be appreciated. Rosa is the direct inspiration for Joe's new superheroine, the Luna Moth. Through this comic, Joe really tries to create a fantastical element via his art, to capture this essence that he sees in Rosa.

Lock

Locks commonly represent barriers, which can be broken, but not easily. Early in the novel, Joe learns the art of Houdini-esque escape due to fascination with the concept of being able to break through his obstacles, be they as simple as a padlock or as complex as fleeing to America from a war struck Prague. Korblum, and old magician, teaches Joe this art until he ceases upon believing that Joe is not trying to "prove the superior machinery of (his) body against outlandish contraptions and the laws of physics, but for dangerously metaphorical reasons. (37)" With this clear motivation, Joe decided to live his life in support of his ideals, without letting himself be obstructed physically or mentally. When he first starts drawing the Escapist comics, Joe refuses Anapol's advice to leave out Hitler and the Nazis, deciding that his message was of higher priority than pleasing his boss. Joe doesn't stop drawing the Nazis into his comic until he personally realized the futility of his approach on the situation. On multiple other occasions throughout the novel, Joe turns down offers involving his comics that lose track of the point he is trying to make, even in the face of a large potential monetary gain. It is this same determination that presses Joe to work so hard, with hopes that he will be able to obtain the means to reunite with his family against odds. Assuring the passage of his little brother, Thomas, into the United States, becomes a priority to Joe. He is hoping that Thomas will be able to (With his assistance) break through the many boundaries on his journey to rejoin him.

Unorthodox Methods Employed by Michael Chabon

2009-11-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

Part of what makes The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay so interesting is the unusual storytelling progression that the author, Michael Chabon decides to employ. As stated in one of my previous posts, chapter one starts with the outcome of Sam and Joe's hard work. From there Sam is developed, and he and Joe meet. This creates a temporary sense of mystery surrounding Joe, who seems to have a serious, deliberate personality. The book then jumps back to Joe's childhood, and gives a lengthy development of Joe through his childhood. The plot then jumps forward to where Sam and Joe are being meeting with Sam's boss, Anapol. The plot settles down long enough to show the process of Sam and Joe putting together a team of artists, create their first comic book, and bring it in to Anapol, who meets the book with doubt, but decides to give it a shot. The book then jumps forward again to when Sam and Joe's comic becomes extremely successful, and Anapol changed his companies focus from novelty product to backing The Escapist and the other comic book heroes. By taking these seemingly random and large leaps all over the chronological stream of his novel, Chabon creates a realistic depiction of life itself, in the form of a flashback. Sometimes stages in a person's life seem to stretch on for an eternity, and sometimes the weeks fly by and nothing of interest happens. When Chabon does settle on a time period, he stays long enough to fully develop the situation and the resolution, and then right when the plot is about to get stale, he throws a curve ball and jumps to a new problem. It works very well, and creates a sense of unpredictability.

Chabon also makes a relatively unknown art the center of Joe's life: The art of escape. I knew who Houdini was before reading this novel, but I never knew how he did what he did, nor did I have any objection to my naivety on the subject. Chabon presents the process in which Joe learns the toils of an escape artist in a highly gradual and descriptive manner, that makes me feel as if I too am being taught. Chabon writes knowledgeably about the subject, which makes it all the more intriguing and engaging. The relative obscurity of the topic that Chabon decided to develop is a major part of what makes it so interesting, as I have not ever read anything like it.

Chapter 1: Reaction and Analysis

2009-11-24T13:41:00.000-08:00

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay starts off chronologically scrambled, starting with the phrase, "In later years." The very first sentence gives the outcome of Sam and Joe's struggle to become comic book artists, showing them being interviewed at a comic convention. It introduces their superhero, the Escapist, who is said to be based off of Houdini. The results to the situations of the first 200 pages of the book are immediately concluded. Personally, I usually prefer to see a problem build up, and watch as the characters devise a situation, as I slowly discover the course of a novel. However, Michael Chabon manages to make this style work quite well. Though he gives away the plot at the beginning of his novel, he doesn't introduce the characters or the situation until later in the novel. As I read this paragraph, I didn't understand who the characters were or what their goal was, so I proceeded into the book none the wiser. It wasn't until later, that the information began to sink in for me, making the resolution retain their freshness.

Chabon then proceeds to introduce Sam. He explains this character in a lighthearted, humorous, and exaggerated manner, creating a literary caricature. "His face was an inverted triangle, brow large, chin pointed, with pouting lips and a blunt, quarrelsome nose." This single sentence set up the overall mood of the book, which was one of whimsical overtones, even in dire situations. As soon as this introduction ceases, the setting shifts to Sam's home, right as he is introduced to Joe. The two start off with a typical awkward introduction, but soon start to mesh, starting with the moment that they share a cigarette that Joe scavenged from some butts and a small square of paper. Sam is impressed by the accuracy of this improvised cigarette, saying that it looked as if it where made by a machine. When they went back to bed, Sam fell asleep, feeling comforted by the company of a potential partner. The chapter ends on this sentence, foreshadowing the strong bond that was to be created between the cousins. This part of the book moves fast and makes several chronological jumps, which continue throughout the entire novel. The time jumps become less frequent, but more noticeable, as several chapters will be dedicated to Joe's childhood, and then he is suddenly in the office of Sam's boss. Overall, this introduction strayed from status quo, and created an interesting progression. I felt compelled to read on and see these characters further developed. The first chapter succeeded in its task to snare me due to it's abnormal structure, and for that I consider it to be a compelling commencement to the novel.

Character Study

2009-11-24T13:38:00.001-08:00

The characters in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay are the backbone of the plot, as they are developed and interesting. First and foremost are the title characters, Josef (Joe) Kavalier, and Sammy Klayman (Sam Clay). They collaborated to create The Escapist, their successful comic superhero. Both characters are introduced, but in completely different manners. Sam is described and dissected in the second paragraph of the first chapter, setting him up as a somewhat shallow character, establishing that while he was interesting, he would not be the focus of the novel. Personality-wise, Sam is shown to be a typical city boy with small origins and big visions. He is given a dialect that utilizes, but doesn't overuse, his Brooklyn origins. His sentences are riddled with typical city slang, which makes his interactions with his foreign cousin, Joe, mildly humorous.

The author soon dedicates about fifty pages to giving a back story to Josef Kavalier. The setting jumps to the past, where Joe is living a comfortable life with his busy parents, who tend to neglect him in favor of their jobs. From an early age, Joe is shown to have a fascination with Houdini, and the concept of escape artists. He eventually obtains an apprenticeship under Bernard Kornblum, and old, but experienced and accomplished escape artist. The author spends quite a bit of time discussing Joe's gradual improvements in picking locks, maneuvering his way out of ropes, and developing a natural feel for utilizing his tools. By the time World War II struck and the Germans were soon to occupy Czechoslovakia, Joe had become a skilled escape artist. His parents give up all that they own in order to safely send Joe to America, but he is denied passage. Unable to go back an face his family, Joe goes to Kornblum, and they devise a complicated plan that eventually lands him in Sam's house. Compared to Sam's one page back story, Joe's development could be it's own novel. Joe is a complex character, who doesn't say much of his intricate thoughts through his fractured English. Sam wants to write comic books simply to earn money, but Joe uses his illustrations to convey his anger at Nazi Germany, and he hopes to eventually earn enough money to see his family again. Sam's sole purpose as a character seems to be to make Joe's character stand out as complex by the contrast created by his own stark simplicity. Both characters are believable and act within their confines, but Joe seems to ultimately be the focus of the story.

Themes from American Literature

2009-11-24T12:58:00.000-08:00

The American Dream is often explored in American literature, and when introduced, is often met with hardships and failure. In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Sam and Joe strive for, and against all odds, achieve, the American Dream. This dream is none other than that of success, although it is often thought incorrectly to be easily obtained. Most characters who grasp this goal aren't aware of the hard work and persistence behind success, thus they fail to reach it. Sam strongly mirrors Willy Loman for the earlier portion of the book. Sam is doing very poorly at his company as an inventory clerk, but he lies to his mother, telling her that he is an artist and that his boss likes him, when the truth is that he is completely dispensable. When his cousin, Joe, arrives, things change.

Joe had just arrived from a long, arduous journey from Czechoslovakia to Brooklyn, narrowly escaping the stranglehold of the war in Europe. Joe had to leave his family behind, who gave up all that they owned in order to get Joseph out of the country. Therefore, Joe was determined to become successful in America, so that he might one day have the chance to see his family again. He spent much of his childhood learning the skills to become an escape artist, which lent him determination from a young age to become accomplished in other fields too, such as illustration. When Joe's dedication and skill met with Sam's ambition and vision, a powerful duo was formed. Sam immediately took Joe to see Anapol, his boss, stating that they could create a new superman. Upon Anapol's approval, Sam goes above and beyond, bringing together a group of artists to draw an entire comic book. Anapol was skeptical at first of the true potential of Sam's comic book, but with Sam's constant pressing and high spirits, he decided to give it a shot. The comic book is successful, and Sam and Joe become triumphant. This backs the age old concept that commitment, hard work and taking advantage of opportunity lead to great things. Sam doesn't give up despite his difficulties, and he finally reaches his dream because of it.

Another strong theme is that sometimes hard work is dismissed as a futile effort. Anybody who has ever worked towards recognition in a competitive field knows the frustration and hopelessness brought forth by being rejected or ignored after trying their best. Today's world is very demanding, and the best of the best is sometimes the only acceptable work. Upon reading their first comic book, Anapol started off with criticism, saying that the book simply wasn't good enough to compete, and that he just didn't get The Escapist, the hero that Sam and Joe put the most effort into. The eventual success of Sam and Joe seems almost unrealistic, given the merciless nature of the entertainment industry. The harsh truth is that hard work and effort must also be backed by talent, and a knowledge of what the public wants.

Golems

2009-11-24T09:10:00.000-08:00

In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Josef Kavalier (Later nicknamed Joe) is trying to escape to the United States from World War II Czechoslavakia. After being refused passage by train, he seeks help from Kornblum, an old master escapist that he once apprentinced under. Kornblum was tasked with shipping out a sacred golem to an area not taken over by the Nazis, so he decides to hide Joe in with the golem. This particular golem became a steady symbol throughout the story, as it became linked to other objects in purpose and traits.

A golem is an animate being created completely from an inanimate material, usually clay. They were created through Jewish folklore, where owning a golem servant was considered a sign of seasoned knowledge, or righteousness. A golem was kept animate by strong magic, and its purpose was to fulfill the demands of its master. They were characterized by their mindless obedience, and can be viewed as a large puppet in the sense that they are only manipulated to serve the purpose of its manipulator.

When first tasked with drawing a superhero for a job application, Joe drew a golem walking down an alleyway. This made clear his thought on illustrated characters, in that they, like golems, had no mind of their own, and only followed the whims of their creator. Joe moves on to write comic about he and Sam Clay's superhero, the Escapist. The hero himself had the abilities of a master escape artist. This mirrored Joe's struggle, as he also was adept in the art of escape, and he was trying to escape from the larger, more abstract concept that he was trapped within the futility of his efforts to affect anything. Joe never truly felt comfortable in New York, and he longed to see his family again, but he knew that this meeting was highly unlikely to ever occur, as his family was caught in the crossfire of the war.

The Escapist can be viewed as Joe's golem for both expressing himself, and trying to move the American public to take action. Throughout the comic, the Escapist fights against Nazi Germany, and on the cover of the first comic book, he is shown punching Hitler in the face. Joe shows in detail through his illustrations the horrors of the conditions the Germany places other countries in through military occupation. He hopes that the images in his comics will be enough to stir the American public to the point of taking action, and that this will allow him to see his family again if the Germans are defeated.