Maus and its sequel Maus II are among the most significant graphic novels to ever be published. They are semi-autobiographical tales about the author and his father, a Holocaust survivor. Art Spiegelman attempts to capture the psychic and physical horrors of the Holocaust in a way that transcends documentary evidence as well as mere fictionalization. Desensitization to the issues of mass murder has permeated popular culture, to the point where it becomes necessary to distance the horror entirely from the human experience and depict humans as animals. This way, Spiegelman acknowledges the problem of documentary evidence, the persistence of memory, and the subjectivity of personal experience. Maus is effective because it uses a unique medium, the graphic novel, to capture a uniquely macabre event in history. As the subtitle of Maus I suggests, the story is not just about Spiegelman's father. "My Father Bleeds History," the subtitle reads. The imagery of blood is unsurprising, but this subtitle also shows how the graphic novel has a frame narrative. Spiegelman wants to document his father's final memories of the Holocaust, but in order to do so, Art Spiegelman must contend with the tremendous gap that exists between him and his dad. As the first person narrator, Art admits, "I hadn't seen him in a long time -- we weren't that close," (11). Establishing the difficulties inherent in the father-son relationship, Maus therefore works on multiple human dimensions. This is not a...
evil, using the Nazis as the obvious embodiment of evil. Maus is also about human relationships and inter-generational conflict. It is about cross-cultural communications as an American son tries to relate with his father who remains stepped in Old World values. Furthermore, Maus is about the ways collective tragedies like genocide impact individuals. The Holocaust has an impact not only on the Jewish diaspora and the sociological dimensions of Jewish life and institutions. In addition to impacting Jewish social and political life, the Holocaust has had a bearing on family relationships. The ability for the father to come to terms with his own guilt and his feelings about his wife's suicide play a major role in the unfolding of the Maus plot. Traumatic stress has caused the father to shut down emotionally and close off his heart to his son. The fact that he has had two heart attacks -- exposed early in the novel -- underscores the way genocide strikes at the "heart" of personal, as well as collective, identities.
Art Spiegelman's Maus II, a continuation of the story in Maus I, is part of a new approach to the telling of the story of the Holocaust. The form selected is the comic book format, and it has a number of powerful advantages. First, it is a fresh approach to a much-told story. Second, the use of the mouse characters interestingly humanizes and personalizes the tragedy much more than might
Maus vols. I and II Maus: The 'cat and mouse' game of Art Spiegelman's Maus One of the most striking aspects of the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman by is the way in which it uses animal cartoon characters to illustrate one of the most tragic periods of human history. The animals create a visual expectation of playfulness that is undercut by the horrors the book chronicles. The victims of the
This 'floating' use of body parts and fluid use of human and mouse anatomical characteristics is another distinct feature of the graphic style of Maus. Frame 6 In this frame, we discover the source of the father's displeasure with Mala. Mala was putting Artie's coat on a wire hanger. The petty nature of this tantrum indicates the stress under which Artie's father labors. He is angry about small things, despite having
This is not stated directly, but is demonstrated by their individual reactions to the challenges of life. The most important concept to remember about Mala is that she is a holocaust survivor too. Mala understands the reasons for Vladek's behavior better than anyone does, because she experienced the horrors herself. She may feel a sense of camaraderie with Vladek that others do not. She may see his reaction to society
Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now We do not generally link the dark vision of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" to the fripperies of Jane Austen, but we should do so because these writers can be seen as important bookmarks to the era of the modern novel and we cannot understand Conrad's work without understanding its connections to his time. By looking back to a writer like Austen we can
Government Since gang-related crimes fall within the jurisdiction of state, this research will give an insight on the need to find solutions that increasingly include all levels of government. Congress needs to pass legislation that will change immigration enforcement laws and make more aliens deportable. In addition, the federal government should take a more active participation in helping local and state jurisdictions develop anti-gang responses. The local, state and federal governments
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