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Analysis Of The Book ' Maus '

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Maus Mid-term The Holocaust was and still is a tragedy that is talked about today among many scholars. There are many ways people have attempted writing about the Holocaust, but not all are the same such as Art Spiegelman with his two-volume book Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, which is about his own father’s tale of the Holocaust told through comic medium. Many scholars and writers think that this ironic and experimental approach to the Holocaust is undercutting what really happened. However, within this book Art captures the true story of the Holocaust and the pain and suffering his father has as a survivor. Though the main focus of Maus is to tell his father’s story, it does so much more; it opens up a lens on the life of a survivor and how…show more content…
Vladek is so cold to his son about having ‘friends’ because during the Holocaust friends did not exist. Having friends during the Holocaust meant you paid them, Vladek told Artie stories about how he had to pay his own family members in order to receive their help. Vladek told Artie, “at that time it wasn’t families anymore. It was everybody to take care for himself” (Spiegelman 1:114). It was hard for Artie growing up to relate to his parents because of the things they had faced in Auschwitz and the Holocaust. Clearly, Vladek had experienced vast amounts of trauma and loss. The trauma Vladek has about the loss of his first son, Richieu, to the Holocaust directly impacts his relationship with Artie. Artie grows up feeling as though he was competing with the picture of his dead brother, whom he never met, that hangs on the wall. Artie writes about this competition in Maus volume 2, “the photo never threw tantrums or got in any trouble…it was an ideal kid, and I was a pain in the ass, I couldn’t compete” (2:15). Vladek may have never compared Art to Richieu, but by hanging up a picture of him in their home was a constant reminder to Artie of him. Richieu had a connection with his parents, especially his father, that Artie will never have because he did not experience the Holocaust with them (Elmwood 702). The ending panel of Maus also brings up the relationship between them, Vladek says to Art, “I’m tired
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