Animal Characterization In Maus

Spiegelman has presented his father’s memoirs in a creative way by portraying racial groups as animals and by making the story into a graphic novel. By presenting it in comic form, Art Spiegelman is able to better capture the emotions of those in the graphic novel. Not a dedication in the conventional sense, the book eternalizes the memoirs of Vladek and those around him.

During World War 2 the Führer advocated the killings of Jews. As a result, they were excluded from society particularly in Molching and Munich where the story is set. This is clarified in the novel through the character of Max, who must hide in the Hubermann’s house to avoid being sent to Dachau as he is Jewish. Max sleeps in Liesel’s bedroom at night before returning to the basement in the morning. Using the technique of metaphor in the line “The Jewish rat, back to his hole.” Zusak further validates this notion. The metaphor suggests that the Nazis viewed Jews as filthy disease-carrying rats who should be cleared from Germany. This is further evident as Zusak writes “He lived in the best part of Molching, high up in a villa which had been fumigated when the Jews were driven out.” Additionally, the metaphor shows the intensity of anti-Semitism at the time as Max being Jewish had to hide in a dirty basement to avoid death even though his father gave his life for Germany in WW1. This is an obvious example of the great extent to which racism is portrayed throughout the

The major theme of the book is shown through the bonds of friendship and how in the most of unlikely circumstances friendship can survive and exist between people possessing an extensive and most restrictive division. A second theme is the evil and the intolerance which existed around these times of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, as seen by the Germans having the Jews in the concentration camp. And the third theme is the curiosity and innocence of Bruno, Shmuel and

However, further connection in context and content can be developed when analyzing the connection of the works roots and art in history. Exodus exhibits the reality of human suffering as a result of war and oppression during the Hungarian Revolution. The historical relevance of this work dives into a deeper significance than its basic face value. The oppression and struggle for power signified in Exodus also translates into Figure 2. Both cultures, in their own time have faced their traditions and way of life being threatened. As Hungarian citizens are forced to leave their country, Ojibwa members were constantly threatened by European immigrants. The human experience is key in understanding and studying art. Besides the main styles and usage in appearance, the connection to a point in time and the influence of that time allows the audience to connect with the artist and the characteristics of the artwork. Audiences are able to connect past themes to present day issues, such as the difficulties facing many Syrian refugees and the numerous Native American women who have gone missing. The importance of home and culture is evident in both works despite their different purposes and artistic modes. Limits are explored and barriers of past, present are future are removed when audiences are able to interpret the work from any point in time and understand the significance of its visual and non-visual means.

The animals in the story were used as imagery for the situation. Each race is depicted as a certain animal, which displays their role in the story: the Nazis are represented as cats, the Jewish people are mice, and the Polish are pigs. “Its form the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice) succeeds perfectly in shocking us out of any lingering sense of familiarity with the events described…” (preface). Artie shares the imagery before the story to help the reader understand. “You're a Pole like me..” (64); when Vladek says this, he is wearing a pig mask, talking to a pig, so Poles can be identified as pigs. Each race at this time had identifiable characteristics that relate to animal characteristics. The Jewish people were hunted by the Germans like cats hunt mice (when there are cats, there are no mice). The Polish played a role that could easily be missed. Artie depicts them as pigs to show they were selfish. The Polish wanted to avoid fighting the Germans because they valued their own

For Art Spielgman’s postmodern graphic novel Maus, the form is arguably more important due to the delicate subject matter. The graphic novel explores the struggles of the authors father, a holocaust surviver Vladek Spielgman, whereas the perspective is also told through Art Spielgman himself. Both characters, are depicted as mice within the novel, this includes all jewish characters within the novel. Nazi’s are conveyed as cats, whilst polish people are depicted as pigs. The binary opposition which is depicted largely in the artwork facilitates an audiences preconcieved notions of cat and mice in order to garner sympathy. Cats are often notorious for hunting mice and are predatory animals. In contrast, mice are seen as vermin. In an interview Spielgman stated that his reasoning for illustrating jews as mice was due to the context of the holocaust and nazi germany “The final solution was built on exterminating jews, not murdering jews. That notion of extermination, that is what one does to vermin”. Furthermore, Spielgman is saying that there is a symbolic connection between the treatment of

Nazi racial ideology has baffled the cultured mind since the atrocities were first made known to the world with the end of WWII. Though the inconceivable horror Jews and other nationalities endured under Nazi reign is common knowledge in our culture and is found in almost any modern history textbook, the mindset that made such atrocities acceptable to Nazis under Hitler’s regime remains a mystery to many. Maxine Kumin admirably conveys the thought process behind this oppressive outlook through the seemingly simplistic poem “Woodchucks”. The purpose of the poem is to align the readers with the narrator’s apparently reasonable yet somewhat sociopathic view of the woodchucks as an inferior life form while building an

The Pianist is a movie that shows the life of one man, Wladyslaw Szpilman who was a popular Jewish Pole radio station pianist. In the World War II which is a background of the movie, How Szpilman suffered and how he survived are presented in the movie. While the movie portrays Szpilman’s life, it also shows how the Jewish people are dehumanized by Nazi during the war. The director, Roman Polanski, successfully uses camera angle, lighting and plot structure, and characterization to present the theme of dehumanization.

Maus has an interesting way in approaching a historical account such as the relationship with his father and the Holocaust. One of the most interesting aspects of Maus is the way in which Spiegelman uses animals to distinguish the various races within the comic

1) The non-Jewish Polish people in Maus are presented in about as neutral of a light as they possibly can. For example, when Vladek and Anja are running in Sosnowiec looking for a place to hide, a woman pokes her head out of the window and screams that there is a Jew in the city in an obvious attempt to stir up Gestapo in the city (I/137). In a few weeks however, a black market dealer known as Mrs. Motonowa, takes Vladek and Anja into her basement to hide, despite knowing the risk that she faces if her husband or the SS find out that she is hiding Jews (I/141). This alone shows the stark contrast of the Polish people in the occupied country.

It is difficult to imagine Maus in another format than this one, in another medium than comics, which allows resources such as those shown here. How to get in any other narrative form that delicate balance between detachment and involvement? Maus is a fascinating exploration of a tragedy, the story of survival with all that that means for those who did not survive, chronic small acts of kindness that are saving lives, whose cruelties record coldness still shakes us. It is a comic book masterpiece.

“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor” (Thomas Jefferson). In the graphic novels Maus I: A Survivors Tale & Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman, he uses animal imagery to portray the predator-prey relationship that the Nazi regime shared with the Jewish population. Based on the alienation of the Jewish “race” albeit “not human” and the superiority that the rest of the populations begin to feel, these depictions of races, countries, and ethnicities as animals is both appropriate and effective to illustrate the various groups during the Holocaust. This resembles the Nazi belief that certain populations have a conventional character and will retain their inborn predator or prey status by characterizing the Jewish as Mice and the Nazis as Cats.

Late into the Maus narrative, a series of squared panels depicts a series of events which leads the readers from a state of unease to one of triumph for the characters. The story has led the reader to Sosnowiec, once the home to Vladek and his family but now depicted as a somber and precarious location through the use of darker shadowing and an accelerando pace when compared to Sosnowiec earlier on in the novel. Vladek is shown walking, followed behind is a mysterious figure. The reader's first glimpse of the figure is on the third panel, where his face is revealed. Because of the classification system the book has taught, the reader will most likely assume that the figure following Vladek is a pole. His pig-like appearance is engraved into the reader's mind as meaning pole, just the same as cat means Nazi/German, and mouse means Jew. “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human”. A quote by Adolf

The books Maus I and Maus II, written by Art Spiegelman over a thirteen-year period from 1978-1991, are books that on the surface are written about the Holocaust. The books specifically relate to the author’s father’s experiences pre and post-war as well as his experiences in Auschwitz. The book also explores the author’s very complex relationship between himself and his father, and how the Holocaust further complicates this relationship. On a deeper level the book also dances around the idea of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. The two books are presented in a very interesting way; they are shown in comic form, which provides the ability for Spiegelman to incorporate numerous ideas and complexities to his work.

The Impact Of Past Events On The Present: No Real Hero in Maus Maus I and Maus II are graphic novels written by Art Spiegelman which both make up a good story as well as attempt to understand the human condition, sort it out and put it in its place. Lynda Barry, the author of One Hundred Demons suggests that literature helps us to cope as if looking at our demons is a way to get to know them, to befriend them and even master them. The story explores the nature of guilt, while exploring traumatic events of the Holocaust through a survivor. This graphic novel also explores the impact of the Holocaust and how it affected the lives of people who were born after it ended. Once reading Maus I and Maus II, it becomes evident to the reader that there is no real hero in this story due to the existing impact of past events on the present.