In his graphic novel, Maus, Art Spiegelman tells an account of the Holocaust in the most daring of ways. Spiegelman’s choice to tell a biographical account in comic book form is bold in and of itself, but his choice to portray all of his characters as animals is the most audacious and controversial choice of all. In Maus, every ethnic group is characterized by its own distinct animal: Jews are mice, Germans are cats, non-Jewish Poles are pigs, and so on. This deliberate choice alludes to the extreme essentialization of identity during the Holocaust. Just as in Maus people are very clearly labeled as mice, pigs, cats, etc., during the Holocaust, people were very strictly groups together by whether they were Jewish, Polish, or German. Each group’s identity was very discretely defined, and there was meant to be no overlap between groups whatsoever. During the Holocaust, who you were was predetermined, and you were stuck with your assigned identity and the consequences and/or privileges that came with it. At key moments in the novel, however, Spiegelman diverts from this strict essentialization of identity. At two distinct moments he draws his characters wearing masks, outwardly portraying an identity different from their inherent identity. In Maus, masks are used as measure of deception and affiliation. Through the use of masks, the characters in Maus have a choice of identity. Masks allow autonomy over one’s identity, an autonomy that did not exist during the Holocaust.
Throughout Maus, Spiegelman symbolically depicts the different nationalities involved in the Holocaust as various animals. The most striking is Jews
The Maus books are award-winning comics written by Art Spiegelman. They are the non-fictional stories of Art and his father, Vladek. In the book, Art Spiegelman is a writer, planning to portray Vladek’s life as a Jewish man during WWII Europe in comic book form. While Art gathers information for his story through visits to his father’s house, much is learned about their relationship and individual personalities. Through this analysis, Maus becomes an example of how the Holocaust has effected the lives of survivors and their children for decades. Survivors suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which impairs their ability to live normal lives and raise their children. By
After the Holocaust on May 8th, 1945, a book called Maus was released which is revolved around survival. The author, Art Spiegelman intended the story was to reflect upon his past and express his feelings world how he had to deal life was at the time.The book is a story of Art’s father named Vladek, he tells his point-of-view to the world to show multiple struggles he had to withstand. The theme of Art Spiegelman’s book Maus is survival; Art Spiegelman shows the theme of survival by using tone, mood, and point-of-view throughout the graphic novel. Vladek is the main character of Maus and shares his point of view. Vladek tells a true story about how he survived the Holocaust and the things he had to accomplish to make it through alive. This book is based on a true story of what had happened during the Holocaust.
The book Maus is written by Artie Spiegelman. Artie’s father is a Holocaust survivor, and a prisoner of war; this is the main event of the story. Artie uses imagery in the form of animals to display race in the graphic novel of Maus. The survivors of the Holocaust are burdened with mental disorders; Artie acknowledges the trauma and the effect it has on the survivors as well as the people around them. Artie uses figurative language and imagery to demonstrate relationships and mental health issues.
Throughout history, many things have happened, such as the Holocaust, that included people who will blindly obey to orders given to them that ended many lives. Events where people have blindly obeyed orders, such as mass killings of innocent people or groups, were called genocides. The people leading genocides were trying to destroy a certain race or ethnic group by either killing them or dehumanizing them, they treated the people very poorly and made the targeted people feel like animals. One of the biggest genocide in history was the Holocaust which targeted Jews, disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. The leader of the Holocaust was Adolf Hitler, who had the Germans kill more than six million Jews and others that were not considered the perfect German, which was described as blue eyed, blond hair, and tall. People will follow orders blindly because they wanted to feel powerful or superior, the events were related to an individual's religion or beliefs, individuals wished to appear as obedient.
Throughout history many things have happened that included people who will blindly obey to orders given to them. Events where people have blindly obeyed orders, such as mass killings of innocent people or groups, were called genocides. The people leading genocides were trying to destroy a certain race or ethnic group by either killing them or dehumanizing them. One of the biggest genocide in history was the Holocaust which targeted Jews, disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah witnesses, etc. The leader of the Holocaust was Adolf Hitler, who had the Germans kill more than six million Jews and many other kinds of people that were not considered the perfect German. People will follow orders blindly because they want to feel powerful or superior, the events relate to an individual's religion or beliefs, and because the individual wishes to appear as obedient.
The word Holocaust refers to the mass murder of 6 million European Jews by the German Nazi regime during World War II. It began in 1933 and ended in 1945. The ruler of Germany during this time was Adolf Hitler. He and the Nazis put the Jew in concentration camps, where thousands were killed everyday. This was one of the worst if not the worst genocides in history. Many books have been written to document survivors’ testimony of this horrific event. Elie Wiesel shares his story and Art Spiegelman shares his father’s story in the books Night and Maus. Comparisons can be drawn between Maus and Night through the author's purpose for writing , the survivor’s experiences, and the author's perspective.
The Holocaust is known to all of us in some manner. Maybe we know someone who survived this
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
Comics exist to expose the ethnic representations that seek to control the development of collective perceptions, memories and emotions and especially fear by investigating the techniques through which this control is maintained. Maus I is a true account of a Holocaust survivor, Vladek Spiegelman, and his experiences as a young Jew during the horrors leading up to the confinement in Auschwitz. Maus II is about Vladek recounting his own history to his son Art
The books Maus I and Maus II are biographical comic books written and illustrated by Art Spiegelman. In these books Spiegelman tells his father’s story of survival through the horrors of the Holocaust. Spiegelman simultaneously presents an inner story of the conflict between him and his father, Vladek Spiegelman as both he and his father try to come to terms with the past, and work to have a normal life. This feelings of tension and conflict suffered by Vladek and Art in Maus I and II is caused by a transitional and rebounding feeling of survivor’s guilt caused by Vladek’s passing down of his own guilt, Art’s guilt of neglect, and Art’s attempts to come to terms with his own guilt of survival.
“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.
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.
When most people refer to literature that concentrates specifically on the Holocaust as the subjects, the first thought usually isn’t in the form of a graphic novel. Most people would believe a graphic novel is something only a child would read or someone to the same educational equivalent. Due to their engaging stories and appealing visuals though, graphic novels are idea for visual learners, inexperienced or unenthused readers, and just about anyone else who may not find traditional print books enticing. Graphic novels tend to show a relationship between the images and the text that makes for an experience in itself (1.). Sometimes even taking on a difficult subject, an example being the Holocaust can make for a different kind of experience. In Maus I & II, the author chose graphic novels as his medium. For that, “Maus shines due to its impressive ability to ‘speak the unspeakable’ by using the popular maxim, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ to perfection” (3).
The first identity one can ever have is nothing except the foundation you are born with. A blank slate in the form of a baby, predestined with certain genetic characteristics. As life continues, the circumstances around oneself begin to inform one’s identity. Humans learn how to think and act, and their identity becomes a result of the response to their surroundings. Sometimes humans have more choices in life than others; these people have more freedom to choose their own identity as well. Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a story about identity, how it changes over time and how circumstances affect it. Each character is drawn with the head of an animal, a marker of the group they belong to. Spiegelman instills in every character on the pages a sense of “identity” that allows the reader to infer their place in the story. However, Spiegelman is constantly subverting this metaphor, contrasting the similar animal heads and the emotions they invoke with the actions in the panel. Spiegelman also makes the artistic decision to frame his graphic novel through a series of interviews between Art and Vladek, giving a story to both a victim of the Holocaust and someone who never experienced it but is nevertheless tied to it. Growing up as the son of two Holocaust survivors, Artie is raised under the shadow of a tragedy that wiped out his extended family and relocated his parents to the United States. The family’s history shows one of not just the religion, but of the societal and cultural bonds