An Analysis Of Maus, A Graphical Story By Art Spiegelman

Maus is an illustration based on Art Spiegelman’s New York visits to Vladek, his father. Vladek was Polish Jew, and survived the World War 11 holocaust. Art visited Maus several times to bring out his memories of the events. The comic gives all characters animal names. Art illustrated how the cats prey upon the mice by showing how the cats killed the Jews. (Miller,2011)

His Arts style of writing Maus involved going back and forth between the past, present and future. This allowed him to show his originality and helped the reader understand the evolution of the story. Vladek’s narrative of his life to his child isn’t structured in any way and he has limited English proficiency. This is how readers can distinguish between the past and the present. Vladeks English is not perfect and his English is improving. (Boin 1997) The author used a similar strategy throughout the comic to tell his story. Art went to his father to collect content for his story. He then took a walk with vladek and had lunch. The last part of the sequence was to link it with the estranged father-son relationship. Art was able follow the sequence after such routine.

Vladek has some very traumatic traits that are reflected in his relationships. Vladek started at the bottom and eventually married Anja, a wealthy woman from his first marriage. He showed compassion and cared deeply for his family during the German occupation. After the massacre, Richiue’s first son was killed by his aunt. All of this affected his behavior and vladek was shown as being stingy with what little he had left after the second world conflict.

Art tries hard to convey his unattached, but not strained relationship with his father. Vladek had a harsh opinion of Art and was quick to criticize him on small matters. His son was an artist and he was a handyman. Art loves his mother, and he says that if rain fell on the roof it was gas. He had to decide between his parents to save them. (Miller2011).

These two relationships demonstrate that Art was in a difficult childhood. In order for the reader to grasp this, it is necessary to connect past and current.

Art was trying to explain the history and present of the holocaust through the eyes of his father. This helped him to paint a more complete picture for the reader. Postmodernism combines the events that occurred before and after the holocaust. This philosophy and Maus’ structure essentially explain the relationship between time and how it is remembered and processed. [Steingold 2015]. With this understanding one can understand why post memory is used to connect Arts style writing with his father’s story about survival. (Shoomp,2008)

Vladeks survival at Auschwitz camp was a miracle. The horrors he suffered after losing everything turned on Art later, directly or indirectly. His survival techniques during and after World War II were fundamental to his ability to have children. [Steingold 2015]. Art presented such a story with all the complications that go along with it like distortion of memory or biasness. Art never forgot that Maus was simply a representation of historical events. Art knew this and realized that it was impossible to represent the holocaust in all its aspects. (Powell.1998) Spielgman tells a story within the Holocaust story. It is his interpretation of the events. He was self-consciously describing the holocaust based on what he had heard. He wanted his readers feel the same as him. He tells his wife how inept he feels about recounting the holocaust. (powell,1998)

To make the truth more sensible, juxtaposition was used to bring together contradictory ideas. Art created his comic story by juxtaposing Vladek’s messy way of telling it. This style allowed the author keep his originality.

The visual style used by Maus is also meant to remove Spiegelman’s past from his present. The visual style allows for humor while also using metaphors. Spiegelman uses comics to convey a serious issue. Spiegelman illustrates Jews as mice and Nazis like cats. Spiegelman creates metaphors using a postmodern style adult comics. He adds historical anti-Semitism and racism to the mix.

These metaphor descriptions are intended to provoke this response. The author says that it is absurd to try to break down things into nationalistic or racial/religious lines. Spiegelman’s twisted theory of racial theories is the result of this quote and the use of the cartoon metaphor. Art is again reminded of this metaphor when he visits his therapist. Maus begins with Art responding to a journalist’s question about how he would depict Israeli Jews being animals. (Spielgman). This scene, and the one that follows, shows all the characters wearing masks. This is the only instance in the novel where this happens.

Citations

Staub, M. E. (1995). The Shoah goes on and on: Remembrance, Representation in Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Melus, 20(3), 33-46. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/467741)

Bloom, E. Maternal Loss. Art Spiegelman’s Mas. Visual Memoirs, 1970s: Studies on Gender and Sexuality in the Post-Civil War Rights Age. (https://www.academia.edu/16033465/Maternal_Loss_the_Art_of_the_Self_Portrait_and_Art_Spiegelman_s_Maus_FULL_TEXT_UNFORMATTED)

Ricks, A. (2021). “Ghosts hanging over the House” by Anja Spiegelman. Holocaust Memory in Art Spiegelman’s Maaus. Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism published an issue in which the focus was on analyzing literary works with the aim of critically evaluating them (14(1), 8). (https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol14/iss1/8/)

Paparousis, L. (2017). Poetry After Mauschwitz: Holocaust Memory In Art Spiegelman’s Maus. (https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/undergradawards_2017/4/)

Findlay, L. (2014). In the Shadow of No Towers. Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel explores anxiety and past trauma. Studies on comics were conducted, and the findings were published in volume 5, issue 1, of the journal, with pages 187-203 devoted to the results. (https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/stic.5.1.187_1)