Violence In The Escapist
The Escapist includes violence which is not something new to comic books, but the why behind the violence has a deeper meaning than the usual comic strip. Anapol feels that Joe is taking the violence scenes too far. Joe looks at it as if he has only scratched the surface. Joe’s intentions behind the scenes are shown when Chabon states, “He wanted Anapol to understand the importance of the fight, to succumb to the propaganda that he and Sammy were unabashedly churning out. If they could not move Americans to anger against Hitler, then Joe’s existence, the mysterious freedom that had been granted to him and denied to so many others, has no meaning” (172-173). The violence in The Escapist wasn’t just for filling the page up or pleasing the masses.