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Art Spiegelman Analysis

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Throughout time, the world and its history has seen the ravages of a superiority complex based upon a certain race or religion deeming themselves better than everyone else. No one war, race or religion has ever come out on top nor has anyone been entirely unaffected by the oppression this superiority complex has caused.
Maus is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman. It shows Spiegelman conversing with and recording what his father says about what he lived through being a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The graphic novel uses postmodern techniques in its representation of races of humans as diverse animals: the Jews are characterized as mice, the German soldiers as cats, and the non-Jewish Poles are seen as pigs. Maus can …show more content…

Washington turned out to be the most prominent spokesman for African-Americans in his day. In his moving book, he depicts events in his extraordinary life that began in oppression and finished in worldwide appreciation for his many undertakings. In his simple yet inspiring passages, he tells of his underprivileged childhood and youth, the unyielding struggle for an education, early teaching assignments, and his selection in 1881 to head Tuskegee Institute, and more. A positive believer in the value of education as the best route to progression, Washington condemned civil-rights campaigning and in so doing earned the hostility of many black intellectuals. Washington wrote, “The thing to do when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.” (Washington, 450) Yet, he is still looked upon today as a chief figure in the fight for the equal rights of colored people in the south during a time of war and slavery; one who brought into being a number of associations to expand his cause and who worked vigorously to educate and unite African …show more content…

Spiegelman’s father was treated inhumanely because of his religion while Washington was treated unfairly due to the color of his skin. Both men wrote about what happened and how they chose to rise above their persecution and the injustice of how they are being treated instead of being walked all over. Vladek says in the book, “The fat from the burning bodies they scooped and poured again so everyone could burn better.” (Spiegelman, Book 2, pg. 62) This scene shows the Nazi brutality towards the treatment of the Jewish race. The Nazis torture the Jews, treating them like animals. They strip them of any semblance of their humanity, even in death. They burned the bodies disrespectfully, and then took what was left to burn the others. Each account of these authors’ harsh lives is about something that they cannot control being hated for: color of skin and religious choice. Both authors use their past experiences to show how racism and religious persecution affect a person long after the fact. While reading Maus, the reader moves through several different time periods: the pre-Holocaust, the actual Holocaust, and the post Holocaust. Maus interweaves the past and present, the different subject histories of each character, and the very different cultural contexts of a Nazi occupied Poland versus Rego Park, New York in the present where Art is

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