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
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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
Art Spiegelman used this discriminated medium generally made for child audience to talk about the Holocaust, one of the biggest atrocities in the recent history of mankind. The plot tells the story of Vladek, a Polish Jew who tells his story as a survivor of World War II.
Art Spiegelman’s Maus is based upon a true story. This novel is more than just a regular memoir. It is a riveting tale in the form of a comic book that is meant for readers that are not nonchalant to the events of the Holocaust, the genocide of the Jews during the second world war ordered by Adolf Hitler. While the novel is in the form of a comic book, it focuses on one of the most serious, tragic events in history. It focuses on the history of the Jewish people and how it has impacted adults and children in that time in history and of today. What Maus does is provide readers with a mix of non-fiction and biography on a serious event, while keeping it light-hearted with its beautiful artwork. Winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, it can be considered one of the most powerful books about the Holocaust.
The comic Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is an Animal Farm-esque story, using animals as means of communicating through characters, to tell the story of Hitler and the Holocaust. The Holocaust is often referred to as the most prominent example of racial discrimination and hatred. By Spiegelman’s use of mice, cats, and pigs to tell they grim truth to his father’s historical ties with the Holocaust, he is allowing the readers to experience the dismal past with clear understanding. This comic, printed first in 1980, was the first of its kind to give such comprehendible reading to younger or less educated people. This is important, as it helps refrain people from creating a similar lifestyle. The book also puts grave detail into the fact of how miserable
Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor's Tale is a graphic novel which portrays the horror of the Holocaust through the use of animals. The mice are the narrators, representing the oppressed Jews while the cats represent the Nazis. This story is told as a first-person narrative, explaining in depth the horrors lived by Vladek, a Polish Jew reliving his tale by sharing his story with his son, Artie. Spiegelman uses this novel to tell his own life story as a Holocaust survivor. Unlike his father, he may not have lived through the horrors the Nazis have brought to the Jews, but he had to grow up and live with the psychological effects and the trauma this had on his father. Indeed, the novel begins with a prologue which is a memory Artie recounts from
Art Spiegelman writes Maus to depict the events of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Spiegelman uses a comic book medium to portray his father’s experiences in Auschwitz which is a very unusual way to write about a serious topic. Art Spiegelman reveals the true terror and horror of the Holocaust in Maus through firsthand accounts and experiences to enhance and convey a deeper meaning along with visual representations to intensify the story in a whole new way where the reader can have a more understandable approach to the events of the comic book.
The award-winning graphic novel Maus is a first-person story of Art Spiegelman’s father, a Holocaust survivor. However, through the narrative, the author conveys not only the dynamic character of his father, Vladek, but also subtly discloses his own complexity through his commentary on his father’s experiences. In his interesting elucidation, he reveals that he may be just as fascinating of a character, if not more so, than the dynamic persona of his father. In Maus, close reading proves that Art characterizes himself through his portrayal of his relationship with his father, and his feelings for his mother. One of the largest factors that defines Art’s character is his complex relationship with his father.
Maus by Art Spiegelman is a graphic novel about a man 's story of surviving the holocaust and the son was asking his father to tell this story. By itself this is a great story a man trying to survive the Holocaust against the odds and reunite with his lost love. Outside the simple exterior there is a dark theme of guilt that enhances the text from cover to cover. This theme of guilt is something that can be seen throughout the story, in a surprising number of times and an even more surprising number of ways.
Maus is a graphic novel about a survivor of the holocaust. The author depicts in the graphic novel what his father told him about his experience in the holocaust. It is written about the events of the holocaust. The story begins when the author goes to his father’s house to interview him about his memories of the holocaust. He was jotting down notes so that he could make a book about his father’s life.
A swastika, a cat, and two despondent looking like mice. The old maxim goes you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the cover of Maus aptly sets us up for a reading experience like no other. Maus is a graphic novel that aims to display the gruesome, deplorable, and dehumanizing events that occurred during the Holocaust. The Holocaust, in simple terms, was the brutal genocide of over six million Jews by the hands of the Germans. It can be argued that at its core, Maus is a novel about the father-son relationship between Art Spieglmen and his father, Vladek. What separates Maus from various other novels published about the Holocaust, is the medium Spiegelmen uses to stylize his story. Maus is read through a series of expressive comic strips and Spiegelmen opts for animal masks to represent the humans in the novel, which has a multitude of impacts on the novel. The choice of animals associated with their typical “people” clearly tends to the wickedness of Holocaust, with each animal representing their own allegorical meaning. On the flip side, the usage of animals can be interpreted as means to lighten up a saddening story, and in effect desensitize the Jewish plight. Moreover, after reading “Prisoner of Hell Planet”, (The short, almost surreal, comic strips illustrated by Spiegelmen as humans, which predates Maus and concerns the suicide of his mother) we truly experience this different set of emotions evoked from humans vs that of animals. There is a striking contrast in
Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel called Maus about the Holocaust. This book tells the story of Art’s father Vladek. Art writes about how he interviews his father later in his father’s life to learn about his experiences in Nazi Europe in the early 1940’s. The book contains many sad stories of death and destruction. Art uses the medium of comics so that his readers are able to see and read about the awful happenings during the Holocaust. Vladek demonstrates many abnormal behaviors throughout the novel because of his disturbing experiences. Throughout the story, it is shown that the Holocaust affects almost every aspect of Vladek and Art’s lives. Through diagnosing both Vladek and Art with post traumatic stress disorder, we can better comprehend
Maus is the story of a prisoner from Poland who survived gas chamber from Auschwitz in Germany during World War II. There are two narratives in this book: one of them happens in World War II Germany, and Poland, and the other one, which occurs around 70s in New York. The first chapter of Art Spiegelman`s Maus published in the graphic magazine Raw in 1980s. Maus is a comic book about Holocaust where the Nazis are shown as cats, Jews as mice, Poles as pigs, and Americans as dogs. Art Spiegelman`s parents were both in Auschwitz. The connection between these two stories, books, or narratives, and more relatively between the past and present is the core of these stories. The events that happened in Holocaust impacts Vladek`s life
Most graphic memoirs contain little to no colour. For the sake of improving the quality of Maus, Art Speigelman’s stylistic choice to exclude all color, leaving the comic completely in black and white, obliges the readers to interpret the memoir’s theme and mood. Maus I relays Art’s father’s life and memories from when Germany occupied Poland during the Second World War. Art’s stylistic choices aid in making this subject matter less disturbing and also keep the autobiographical storyline associated with the hardships of the Holocaust without compelling readers to put the book down. The entire graphic memoir is colored in black and white, and the panel images that enforce the present and the past are designed in the same manner. Therefore, as Art continues to interview his father, it becomes more difficult to
In response to Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus, I have created a sequential art series, which would be considered a comic (Eisner, 2008). This comic titled, Holocaust, explores the complexities of survival despite extreme persecution a prevalent theme in Maus. I have also used anthropomorphism in these illustrations, which also has a strong presence in Maus. In this comic a forest is persecuted as it is set on fire, all the trees of this forest face danger and a high likelihood of death; comparable to the extreme persecution of Jewish people at the hands of the Third Reich’s final solution (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.), which is investigated by Art in Maus. In order to make a response that is effective in its communication and has aesthetic value I have used various literary, artistic and
What do you think is the one ‘necessity’ in this world that can cause destruction?
In the novel Maus horror is repeatedly portrayed at the concentration camps located in Poland, it also displays the difficulties of second generation Holocaust survivors Its graphical format plays an essential role in making the story come alive in a less serious way, as does the troubled relationship between Vladek and Art. There are two primary voices in this graphic novel. One of the main voices is Vladek, he is the Holocaust survivor and the artist father. The artist Art Spiegelman's, the second voice that carries the part of the story that allows readers to connect with what is being presented. Art Spiegelman's interacts with his father .It's a balance between the two voices that was very well designed and created to aid the true meaning of the novel.Vladek not only tells what he remembers, but Spiegelman very cleverly leaves in how his father will reflect on what happened which adds to the personal level of this story. It makes the reader want to empathize with a person rather than just a story of a faceless survivor. In the novel Hiroshima, written by John Heresy it tells the story of six different people whose life were affected by the bomb that was dropped on August 6 in 1945. The graphic novel Maus written by Art Spiegelman's is mostly for a younger audience due to the use of animals and pictures , however in the novel Hiroshima, written by John Heresy it is written in a more serious and journalistic way which is based on facts and therefore