...Spiegelman’s Maus is a famous, Pulitzer Prize winning tale about the journey of a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Despite the amount of similar storylines, Spiegelman’s creativity with the normal elements of comics has won him high praise. This analysis will focus on Spiegelman’s unique twist on icons, layouts, diegesis, abstraction, and encapsulation as displayed by Maus. Icons are pictures that are used to embody a person, place, thing, or idea. McCloud hammers this concept home by drawing random things, such as a cow (McCloud, pg. 26), but reminds the reader that it is technically not a real cow. It is just an image. In Maus, Spiegelman’s characters are icons; he utilizes everyday, commonplace animals to represent the humans in the plot. The type of animal portrayed is dependent on the nationality of the human being resembled. The Jewish characters, such as Vladek and Art, are depicted as mice (pg.11, top left panel), the Polish are drawn as pigs (pg.28, bottom panel), the Germans are cats (pg. 33), and the Americans are dogs (pg. 125, bottom right). These animalistic icons aid the reader in clearly distinguishing between the different groups of character, establishing a prevalent a motif of predator vs. prey, as well as revealing common traits of each group. Abstraction is the process of breaking down an image to a more simple form, allowing the viewer to focus on specific details. Spiegelman strategically uses abstraction in his style when drawing his characters. In Maus, this...
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...novels Maus I and II by Art Speigelman, Art tells the tale of his father Vladek who is a survivor of the Holocaust. Throughout the novels, Art makes references or portrays within the comic how this has affected himself in one way or another. By constructing the panels in a way that shows how one event is connected to or lead to the other: the text demonstrates that Art has experienced some psychological scarring from the Holocaust as a second generation survivor. In a broader statement, the Holocaust has had a psychological and cultural effect on its survivors. In a television interview titled, “The Holocaust through the Eyes of a Maus” with Art Speigelman: Art states that the purpose of this graphic novel was to recite his father’s story as a survivor of the Holocaust. Art mentions that Maus is about the past and the present intertwining irrevocably and permanently. One of Art’s intentions were to gain a relationship with his father. Through this process of coaching Vladek, trying to collect information about the events that occurred he gained a relationship as interviewer/interviewee. Multiple situations throughout the novels Maus I and Maus II, Art indicates that the Holocaust has been the primary reason why they have this distant relationship. For example, when Arts friends left him when he was a child and he cried to Vladek. His response to him was telling him that, if you lock them together in a room with no food for a week that he would see what friends were (Maus I pg 6)...
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...Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale—And Here My Troubles Began The Holocaust was one of the worst epidemics in the entire world. Many people were killed, more importantly the Jewish community, with millions dead. Families were torn and never mended. Among these families were the Spiegleman’s. Art Spiegleman was the son in the family who wrote about his father’s experience in the Holocaust. Maus I and Maus II are his two works of art that share historical information and his personal struggle. Within Maus II, Art talks about the start of his father’s struggles and what will be the beginning of a life changing event. The Holocaust affected victims just as the American Great Depression did its victims. This chapter starts out with Vladek continuously counting his pills, and then Artie and Francoise are staying with him just for a little since Mala left. Vladek keeps everything; he doesn’t want to get rid of anything, even crumbs. In chapter three, page 78 of Maus II, he is trying to give Artie a piece of fruitcake, and Artie refuses, and says he isn’t hungry. Vladek then tells Artie, “So, fine. I can pack the fruitcake in with the cereal for you to take home,” then Artie refuses to let Vladek give him the food because he doesn’t want it. Vladek then says, “I cannot forget it…ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb.” This shows that Vladek is still afraid to get rid of anything, because he is still in fear of the past. They begin talking more about Auschwitz, and how in...
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...In the books Maus I and Maus II by Art Spiegelman, the father and son relationship with the two main characters is an interesting adventure. The father, Vladek, is a survivor of a tragic 19th century event, the Holocaust. The holocaust has a negative effect on the way Vladek carries himself. Vladeks son, Artie, is getting told the story of the holocaust from a survivors point of view, Vladek is a survivor. Artie is writing a graphic book on the horrific story his father is proposing. Throughout the story, father and son have many disagreements, and certainly an entertaining love and hate relationship. One prime way the holocaust affected Vladek is the lack of trust he has with people. When Artie was a child, he was having problems with some kids at school, whom he referred to as his “friends”. Vladek assured him, “friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room for a week, then you will see what it is, friends!” (Spiegelman, 6). Artie must have had a rough time growing up with Vladek because his lack of trust, and also his compulsiveness of neatness or organization. Vladek constantly needs to keep all of his tasks in extremely precise order. Sometimes his compulsiveness provoke arguments and disagreements. Besides Vladeks thrive for organization, Artie and Vladek disagree on many events, often causing irritable situations. Vladek still treats Artie as if he is a child. He tries to influence the way he dresses by throwing out his coat, and giving him one...
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...Often times when reading novels based off of true events, the reader is inclined to interpret what the narrator says to be true. In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, neither Artie nor Vladek could be considered reliable narrators due to Artie being the author of the book thus being able to edit his book however he saw fit, and Vladek is unreliable because his recollection of the Holocaust has a large bias since he only encountered one side of the Holocaust and his memories could be skewed by his age. Artie is not a reliable narrator because he is both the author and narrator and because he has allowed his relationship to his father to bias his perspective. Art Spiegelman chose to show his relationship with his father in the book. “Simultaneously it is a sharp study of the tension that exists between father and son, and the story of the writing of the book itself” (Grossman “Maus…”). Due to him being the author and editor of the book, one cannot trust Artie because he could have edited anything he wanted in order to portray the tension between him and his father in a different light than what it really was. Throughout the novel, Art and Vladek have intense arguments, the most passionate being the final one where Art leaves his father, calling him “Murderer” (159). When taken out of context, it seems a bit extreme for Art to call his father a murderer. But, the way Art wrote about his mother and included the very personal strip that he wrote about her, makes the reader feel for his side...
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...Spiegelman’s Maus first and perhaps most forcefully established the connection between archives and comics. His groundbreaking work documenting his father’s experience in WWII Poland, where he survived internment in Auschwitz, is a visual narrative based on oral testimony that consistently heightens our awareness of visual, written, and oral archives, and where they interact, overlap, or get transposed one into the other. Hillary Chute recounts and interprets her collaboration with Spiegelman in the process of assembling MetaMaus, a book compiling interviews and archival materials on the making of Maus. MetaMaus, argues Chute, reflects the tension between different kinds of extant archives—oral, written, photographic—and the cross-discursive work of (re)building new archives that motivates Maus. Its defining feature is that it shows the materiality of Spiegelman’s archive; it is about the embodiment of archives. The subject of Maus is the retrieval of memory and ultimately, the creation of memory…. It’s about choices being made, of finding what one can tell, and what one can reveal, and what one can reveal beyond what one knows one is revealing. Those are the things that give real tensile strength to the work—putting the dead into little boxes. – Art Spiegelman (MetaMaus 73) Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is a book about archives. And the book about making Maus, MetaMaus, is both a process of taking stock of the Maus archive and an active process of creating a new archive.1 Maus is about...
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...There have been many re-tells of Holocaust survivor stories. For example, Maus II and “Life is Beautiful” are two excellent versions of Holocaust victims experiences. In these traumatic scenarios both stories shared a unified message of appreciation and never giving up hope. In “Life is Beautiful” Guido convinces his son Joshua that their time in the Concentration Camp was a game, assuring him they would be reunited with Dora (Joshua’s mother) and return back home, presenting hope. In Maus II Vladek was infected with Typhus and struggled to even stand on his two feet, but Vladek had hope throughout his sickness which eventually led to his freedom from the Concentration Camp and the reunion of him and his wife Anja. Another important unified message demonstrated was appreciation, in “Life is Beautiful” Guido lives every moment with his son as if it is his last, appreciating the time he spends with Joshua. In Maus II after Vladek survives the Holocaust he appreciates every piece of food and money. For instance, Vladek refuses to throw away even a crumb of food and did not allow his son to use his wooden matches in order to save them. There are many messages “Life is beautiful” and Maus II demonstrate but in my opinion I believe appreciating what one has and never giving up hope are the most valuable. The unified messages presented in both “Life is beautiful” and Maus II can be applied to not only my life, but everyones. In todays society most people forget how much food is cherished...
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...Before the war | 4 | 2.b | During the war | 5 | 2.c | After the war | 6 | 3 | Maus: Graphics and Symbolism | 6 | 4 | Comparative Analysis: Understanding the Characters | | 4.a | Sophie and Vladek | 8 | 4.b | Sophie and Anja | 9 | 4.c | Nathan Landau and Holocaust survivors | 10 | 4.d | Stingo and Art as narrators | 10 | 5 | Bibliography | 11 | Literature from the Holocaust: An Introduction “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.” Adolf Hitler Official figures tell that six million Jews, two million Poles, one million Serbs, five million Russians were exterminated during World War II – the actual toll of executions by the Nazi Government, can never be estimated. Holocaust was a period of unspeakable horror and infernal ramifications which were not only felt across Europe but also in places like Laos. When I began this term paper, it was meant to be a study of the literature pertaining to this period of Nazi regime in Poland during World War II. What it turned out to be was a account of implacable and starkly real evil. A subject that has inspired countless movies, novels, real-life accounts, memoirs and poems, the holocaust continues to haunt the imagination of the world even today. It is not history bygone and forgotten, it is a demon that could never be truly obliterated from the lives and minds of the people. The following pages contain an analysis of Maus, the Pulitzer Prize Special Award recipient (1992), and one of the most loved...
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...surface of Maus it is a story that revolves mostly around Vladek Spiegelman’s experiences in the Holocaust, but Masks and manipulation is one of the few themes of the book that has a greater picture of what the book entails. Vladek’s experiences during World War II go into brutal vivid detail of the persecution of Jews by German soldiers as well as by Polish citizens. Author, Art Spiegelman, has the reader reading through the usage of modifying points of view as Spiegelman structures several pieces of stories into a large story in order to portray his father’s Vladek’s history as well as the experience with his father while writing the book. Naturally, being aware of what the subject of Maus is has issues of race and class drilled in the book: plot, theme, and structure of Maus. At a level of generosity the issues are based off in the years of the mid 1930’s to winter 1944, an awful result of irrational racism that Mr. Spigelman describes and drew throughout the years of effectiveness and cruelty. Nonetheless, Maus deals with this issue in a different direction, more delicate ways, through the use of different animal faces to portray different races. The initial page of the book is graphic memoir, Mr. Spigelman cover page presents a comic. Maus’s prolong establishes the...
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...MAUS Character Summaries Art Spiegelman | Art Spiegelman is the author and narrator of Maus, and also one of the story's main characters. Born in Stockholm after the Holocaust, he is the only surviving child of Vladek and Anja Spiegelman. His brother, Richieu, died as a child during the war, and his mother committed suicide in 1968 when he was twenty years old. He has a history of mental illness and is married to Francoise, a French woman who converted to Judaism upon their engagement. Maus centers around two primary narratives: Vladek's experiences as a Jew in World War II Poland, and Art's relationship with his aging father. This second narrative follows a period of time in Art's life beginning around 1978 and ending sometime shortly before Vladek's death in 1982.When the story opens, Art lives in New York and does not see his father very often, though he lives only a short distance away in Queens. But as Art begins to draw this story about Vladek's Holocaust experiences, he begins to visit his father more and more frequently. Their relationship is strained, as Vladek's gruff demeanour and unwillingness to spend money routinely infuriate his son. Art is filled with complex feelings towards his father ranging from admiration for his survival in Auschwitz, to frustration towards his aggravating tendencies, and guilt for his own neglect of a father who has lived through so many difficult times.Art also has complex emotions towards the Holocaust. Though he did not live through...
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...“When first I came home it looked exactly so as before I went away… (74),” Vladek begins recalling his past experiences to his son Art. In Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art is the son of a Polish Jew who writes and records his father’s memories of the horrendous holocaust. This ability to create multiple perspectives is known as frame narrative, allowing the readers to learn more insight about the characters such as thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Although the comic itself is seen through Art’s eyes, words, and sketches, it is Vladek’s story that is being represented. Art Spiegelman did a wonderful job of incorporating numerous smaller narratives into one graphic novel with his constant use of two very important literary devices. The use of...
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...draws the characters of his book as mice, cats, pig etc.? 3. Maus 4. What was Vladek like? 5. Vladek is an older person with a very précised in what he want and he son see this as being annoying. He feels you need to be aware of everything. He does not trust people specially his second wife Mala. He has hearth problems and he is diabetic. Sometime he used his sickness to his advantage. 6. During the Holocaust, he exhibited a spectacular resourcefulness, work ethic, and presence of mind that often enabled him to secure food, shelter, and safety for himself and his family. He was a shrewd businessman, and in the most troubling times he saved everything of use. In 1978, he still saves everything and tries to exchange those things that he no longer needs. Once so resourceful and competent, he is still constantly working on small projects, some of which he is incapable of completing. Vladek's personality is largely dominated by his Holocaust experiences. 7. What do we know of his life before the holocaust? 8. He was a happy bachelor living his life in the small city of Czestochowa. He used to sell textiles. Vladek was organized person his apartment was small but organized. He met Anja and soon he felt in love with her. When Anja take him to her house to meet her parent, he checks her clothes to see what kind of wife she will be. To his surprise she was organized like him. 9. Vladek marries Art's mother, Anja, in Poland in 1937, only two years before...
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...What it takes to survive a war “Maus” is graphic novel that tells the story of some survivors of the Holocaust, written by Art Spiegelman. It revolves around the main character Vladek (Art’s father) and his journey starting from years before World War II throughout the war and finally the end of the war and his survival. As a Jewish man, Vladek’s survival through the war and the Nazi concentration camps was genuinely a tough and difficult trip. Not only he survived, but Vladek also managed to carry his family away from the face of death. Quite a few factors contributed to his success, some are physical; such as his various skills and abilities that he used to keep himself alive, while the rest are emotional; like his love to his family, his dedication and his resourcefulness. Vladek was a true handyman, he possessed lots of skills before the war which later turned out to be his boat to the shore of life. He started out in the textile business, where it was more management work than hard labor. Later after Anja fell into a state of depression and he was coming back from the sanitarium, he enlisted into the Polish army, where he learned survival and combat skills that would help him in the long run. He was taken as a prisoner soon enough after the war starts, however, he got released. Vladek got into the black market business, dealing in the black market taught him a lot of skills varying from negotiation and communication skills to life lessons such as not trusting everyone...
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...Gestapo, and the war provided is a rewarding achievement for a lucky Jewish subject. Not for Vladek Spiegelman. In Artie Spiegelman’s Graphic Novel Maus, he uses pictures to describe his father’s journey through the Holocaust. Vladek loses almost everything he loves his business, home, and most of his family. This tests his character throughout the story and ultimately results him being bitter towards life after. However the Holocaust forces Vladek to rely on inanimate objects to get him through this time. He confuses people and things as a sense of coinage. In the story Maus, Vladek’s ordeal through the holocaust complicates his connection towards currency, and this consequently alters his relationships with Mala and Artie. Vladek’s relationship towards currency begins as a love story. Vladek is first attracted to Anja because of her wealth. The bottom of page twenty shows them at the park and the dialogue is an invite to dinner at her parents house. After the invite Vladek narrates that “The Zylberberg family was very well off- millionaires! (Spiegelman 20).” This panel shows his eyes in a very pleased manner as if he made the right decision in choosing a woman. It is the panels on the next page where he is assesses his wife to be. He comes in and the family welcomes him like he is royalty and then begins to poke around Anja’s personal belongings. By doing these acts Vladek sees woman in his life as a perception of currency. The old fling he leaves behind, Lucia...
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...Your Title Your name Institution Date (optional). GUILT is an emotion one gets when he/she believes or discovers that he/she did a wrong deed and valuated his/her standard social, moral or penal code ( Chaplin, 1975). The intensity of guilt varies from one person to another. When some individuals survive a horrific event, they get this overwhelming feeling of guilt and blame themselves for surviving the abominable situation that others did not survive. This state of mind is a mental condition and is sometimes termed as imagined guilt. It may be found in survivors of holocausts, natural disasters, mass murder and pandemics e.g. the 9/11 Oklahoma City bombings. While this guilt might not be experienced by everyone, it a research based phenomenon and has been proved to be real. The expression and amount of guilt varies from individual to individual. This condition was grouped as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, 2000). The survivors may or may not be consciously aware that they are feeling guilty. The holocaust was the carnage that took place where the Nazi, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, killed over six million Jews. Most of the Jews who survived suffered post-traumatic stress disorders. Symptoms include reverent memories of the traumatic event that took place, flashbacks of the event, physical and emotional stress due to something that is a reminder of the event and horrific dreams about the event. When...
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