Analysis Of Maus By Art Spiegelman

The Holocaust which was one of many of the controversial events that have happened in the history of our world demonstrated a significant amount of cruelty and dehumanization. Because of such a controversial event, many have suffered through physical and unfortunately psychological upheaval and distress. With previous knowledge and novels’ read on the Holocaust, it came to be known that the event was triggered through obedience and conformity due to the not specifically the Germans’ beliefs of anti-Semitic and propaganda, but more of leader Adolf Hitler. The time of the Holocaust was used to dehumanize which enhanced the understanding of mental health and human psychology. During the Holocaust, many psychological principles affected individuals forever. The principles include groupthink and of course knowing the outcome of the event. Such principles sooner explain the reality of life because it stresses how individuals react due to their past experiences like the Holocaust and most importantly how traumatic events build them as who they are today.  Innocent Jews went through starvation, terrible working conditions, and the elimination of race through torture such as gas chambers. Furthermore, the history of this controversial event is now being used to be alert of the health and wellness of those who have gone through such events that sooner change their behavior and mentality for the better or even worse.

The human tendency is to feel guilt after a great tragedy, and so in turn humans will feel survivor’s guilt. Good people will naturally put more blame on themselves even if they had done nothing wrong or all that they could to help. In the editorial “The Moral Logic of Survivor’s Guilt” by Nancy Sherman, the author gives many examples of good people feeling survivor's

Terrible Things by Eve Bunting is a fantasy story with compelling symbolism connected to the Holocaust written for all ages. Eve Bunting tells the readers “Standing up for what you know is right is not always easy. Especially if the one you face is bigger and stronger than you. It is easier to look the other way. But, if you do, terrible things can happen.” Eve Bunting tells readers in her allegory and in her short message that standing for what is right needs confidence and bravery. However, if looking away is the action made, terrible things can happen. This is similar to what happened in the Holocaust where millions of people died because very few people chose to stand up to face the Nazis. Her story presents the theme, standing up for what is right is difficult, but looking away will cause terrible things to happen, through symbolism, repetition, and tone.

People that survived the Holocaust were optimistic and/or hid but today most are guilty. They have guilt in them because they survived while others were dying amongst them.Surviving World War II meant freedom but many did not get to that point, unfortunately. They were brutally murdered or died either from working too much , starvation, and/ or diseases that spread like wildfire. Unbelievably, smells from the gas chambers, where victims were poisoned with gasses, are still present at concentration camps locations . Many survivors have never been able to get over this horrific event that took place because of the terrifying memories from the camps. Memories of how ruthlessly people were being killed, disgusting food, and the hard work, haunt

survive. People will usually not feel the effects of guilt or pain at that moment in time because it was for their own sake to live. During the Holocaust, everybody thought they were going to die in the concentration camps, that death was inevitable in the camps, so surviving alongside their family members or by themselves as much as they could was the end goal. Many people changed mentally and physically because of what they experienced during their time in the camps, which could be the cause of some regrettable actions that could have been prevented if the person did not experience such brutal treatment by the Nazis. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the author writes

From 1933 to 1945, millions of lives were thrown into chaos because of the Holocaust. Families were ripped apart and values were washed away as citizens were forcefully placed in concentration camps to either be immediately killed or to work until they died. Every person within the camps faced unthinkable trauma. Once everyone was released, the prisoners began to search for lost loved ones and a sense of normality. However, the anguish did not end with the end of the Holocaust. Following the Holocaust, first generation survivors developed abnormal values, societal dependence, and a need to avoid the topic of the Holocaust as an effect of their trauma; these side effects were then passed down to future generations

For the past 300 years, the world’s society has displayed lots of unbelievable human cruelty. For example, slavery in the 18th and 19th century, African Americans were forced into harsh work labor because of their skin color. Then in the 20th century, a determined dictator, Adolf Hitler, murdered and tortured eleven million lives. This horrifying event was called the Holocaust, it occurred in 1933 but ended in 1945. Adolf Hitler was angered about the result of World War 1, so he blamed Jewish people, the disabled, and other groups. During the holocaust, the eleven million lives were forced into harsh work labors or was put into gas chambers and was killed instantly. People described the Holocaust as inhumane act, and the people that survived it, could really say it was a scarring memory.

When you hear " Holocaust Survivor" you think of a new beginning, a better future, victory at last." But what happens when parents bring a child into this world and their priority is to love and protect their baby In a better and safe place have been traumatized of the past with incredible amount of horrifying memories and experiences? In Art Spiegelman's graphic novels, MAUS 1 and MAUS 2, he exposes the true story of his father, Vladek, and his experience as a Jew throughout the Holocaust through pictures and sketchy storytelling. The relationship between Art and his father is the essential description in the book as Art has no other way to escape from being victimized by his own father's

The Nazis killed over six million Jews and millions of other Polish and Soviet civilians in the Holocaust. They also killed gypsies, physically and mentally disabled people and homosexuals. The number of survivors today are quickly dwindling down. Clinical psychologist Natan Kellermann defines a Holocaust survivor as any Jew who lived under Nazi occupation and was threatened by the “final solution” (Kellermann 199). This definition can be applied to not only Jews, but to anyone in general whose life was threatened by the Nazis. When these survivors were liberated, they believed the suffering was over, but for many, this wasn’t the case. The trauma of the horrors they faced is still evident in their life. By analyzing the effects of post traumatic stress disorder after the Holocaust, readers can see that the aftermath of the Holocaust is still prevalent in the survivor’s everyday life; This is important to show that while the trauma may not be overcome, the survivor can be more at peace with the events.

“The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either” (Wiesel,36). One of the most important keys to survival during the Holocaust was endurance and self-preservation. In order to ensure one would make it by, many focused on themselves. Some of the Holocaust victims took this mindset too far. There were many times when the Jews would kill each other, including their own family for food. In “Night” by Elie Wiesel, there were many times were Elie thought he would be better off without his father.

When placed in particular situations, humans prioritize which cultural values they consider to be the most significant. This was the case with the event that left an abysmal wound in world history known as the Holocaust. When individuals were subjected to such horrendous conditions, it was evident that they had prioritized particular values. For some, this prioritization proved to be the factor between life and death. One instance of this is a Jewish survivor called Elie Wiesel. The account of his dreadful experiences are published in his first hand narrative, Night. The memoir elaborates over the impact the event had on him as an individual. Upon analyzing Wiesel’s memoir for the values that humans prioritize during such events, it can be

The average person’s understanding of the Holocaust is the persecution and mass murder of Jews by the Nazi’s, most are unaware that the people behind the atrocities of the Holocaust came from all over Europe and a wide variety of backgrounds. Art Spiegelman’s Maus: a Survivor’s Tale, Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution, and Jan Gross’s Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedbwabne, Poland, all provides a different perspective on how ordinary people felt about their experiences in the Holocaust both perpetrators and victims.

When one cannot deal with guilt within oneself, the feeling of guilt can be transferred to affect another. Art struggles throughout his life to understand why he never had a great relationship with his father. After trying to write with no luck, Art heads to his regular appointment with Pavel, another Holocaust survivor. Pavel suggests that maybe “(Vladek) took his guilt out on YOU, where it was safe… on the REAL survivor.” (7, p 44) Vladek felt guilty about surviving the Holocaust, but instead of accepting it,

When I was younger I thought the holocaust was a pentagon shaped flying ship, now I know that that it is completely wrong, but it was enough to satisfy my six year old mind since no one mentioned the holocaust so why would I need to know about it. Now I know that it was a period where people face mass cruelty and injustice due to their religion and other things. Millions of people were murdered during Hitler’s reign and even more suffered, but by learning about this atrocity we will be able to remember all those who have suffered and prevent something such as this from happening ever again. When you’re young being the “hero” seems to be the easiest and most logical thing to do, since they are the ones always get the happy endings in stories

Art Spiegelman utilizes animals as characters in Maus to great effect. His decision to use animals instead of people is an important one; by representing racial and national groups in a non-normative fashion, he focuses the reader’s attention on the concept of identity, a concept that is often times entirely taken for granted. Identity, and the process by which one’s identity may be formed, is multi-faceted. On occasion, this can be simple. For instance, Vladek is Jewish, and identifies as such, even admittedly conforming to a good deal of the stereotypes, such as miserliness, and is descended from a long line of Jews However, even for someone like Vladek, who never for a moment questions his identity in point of fact, the matter of identity can become complicated; there are times when he has to disguise himself as a gentile Pole to avoid racist persecution and for reasons of survival, making the transformation from mouse to pig in the context of the graphic memoir. During this time of disguise, the transformation is visually rendered by Spiegelman by having Vladek put on a pig mask; Spiegelman, as an artist, takes full advantage of his character’s animalization: species are easily identified, and subsequently categorized by the human mind quickly. For others, however, their identities are not so fixed, not so firmly established. The author’s wife, Francois, is French, but