The Metaphor Of Spiegelman's Maus

Through the experiences of the characters, Akiba Drumer, Moishe the Beadle, and the two executed young men, Wiesel exhibits how the oppressiveness of the concentration camps causes these victims to ultimately lose faith and self-respect in response to the injustices they face. To illustrate, Wiesel uses pathetic fallacy to unify and mimic the setting with the mood. With the migration to new settings, Eliezer is introduced to more violence, his body’s strength drastically weakens, and his hope for liberation and peace is diminished. The symbolic “Never shall I forget that night” (Wiesel 45) not only creates an earnest mood, but also depicts the use of night as a motif.

It is a very powerful tool even to this day in combating the sentiments that led to the Holocaust. Maus also serves as an active warning to all of its readers about how groups of people are treated as scapegoats. This scapegoating can lead to the horrific atrocities the Nazis committed. Maus portrays both of these things happening and effectively discourages them through its imagery and

Spiegelman’s Maus is a graphic novel which explores events of the holocaust and the uniting of a father and son. Though often overlooked the dedications play an integral role in better understanding the text. The dedications do not influence the meaning of the book but do reinforce events in the book. Spiegelman dedicates the first book to his mother as an attempt to rid himself of the guilt associated with his mother’s suicide. In an attempt to not have the same short comings as his father, Art associates his most prized work with the most prized people in his life. Richieu is often disregarded in the book however he is vital in Spiegelman’s eyes. The book in its entirety is highly important as it is a dedication to a whole race.

Vladek is depicted as a hero who shows countless acts of selflessness and generosity and a villain who is, “opinionated, tight-fisted, and self-involved”. (Brown 6) Art Spiegelman’s book Maus, tells the story of how Vladek and Anja Spiegelman survived the Holocaust. Spiegelman illustrates Vladek as a man who single-handily saved his family from starvation and Auschwitz in World War I. During Spiegelman’s interviews, we get an idea of Vladek’s darker side since the war ended. Mala to speak of her astonishment and disgust in Vladek’s character. Which leaves us to question how truthfully these stories are being told. In the end, Vladek’s unsuccessful heroism is a constant reminder of his failure; survival with Anja was always easier, after her death, Vladek pushes everyone away with his “guilt and manipulation” (Brown 7)

The most important distinction between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom is man's ability to understand, reason, and think. The power hungry Nazis are symbolized as cats because of a cat’s constant starvation and tend to be stronger compared to mice and pigs. The Jews are symbolized as mice to show how weak they were and how they were treated during World War II. Spiegelman puts a focus on the mice and the struggle that Valdek went through.

These two following books are very parallel in the manner that they both focus on their personal experiences with the Holocaust. The one major difference was that Maus was a comic book, while Anne Frank was a biography. By splitting the book in sections Kramer is able to show the reader a sense high degree of organization.

The tone in Maus is depression; this is shown when Vladek tells the story in his perspective and reveals what kind of events occurred during the Holocaust. This relates to survival because even though Vladek had a feeling of discouragement through his experiences, he still managed to survive. Vladek explains when he was captured as a war prisoner and what they gave them to eat. “The other prisoners get two meals a day. We Jews get only a crust of bread and a little soup.”(Spiegelman, 55) This shows how hard it was for the Jews and how hopeless Vladek’s story was. Another heartbreaking part of the story was when Vladek had to work hard and act as slaves to the

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

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.

In Art Spiegelman’s graphical novel Maus his demonstration of the Holocaust and its recollection in Maus was very emotional, affecting and the most expressing. The approach that the author has taken construes and magnifies the comical shape of telling history. It portrays Spiegelman dialog between himself and his father about his happenings as holocaust and polish jew survivor. Most of the narrative specifically focuses on Spiegelman 's difficult connection with his father, and the nonappearance of his mother who committed suicide when he was 20.In this essay I will be examining the experience of trauma and memory in Maus. Also I will be showing how the pain and trauma of the Holocaust affected Artie and Vladek 's diasporic memories. Trauma usually describes the association with chronological or combined traumatic proceedings to experiences that happen to others. These occasions are internalized circuitously through images, and stories and other recaps and reminders of their family’s occurrences. Spiegelman also investigates and addresses the load and legacy of distressing reminiscence on second-generation survivors. In the narrative Maus discovers and documents this behavior of dual memory. Throughout the story Art talks about the state of affairs in which his father’s reminiscences are expressed. The chronological and personal trauma produced by the Holocaust, and by simplifying the reintegration of the following generation to its past.

By comparing, analyzing and questioning the validity of Maus I and II, Night, Night and Fog, nonfictional historical accounts and a poem, called Already Embraced by the Arm of Heavenly Solace, found in Europe in the Contemporary World, Schindler’s List and the Return to Auschwitz we may determine to what degree these sources serve to advance humanity’s understanding of the holocaust. The holocaust can be explained as the historical event in which the Nazi’s, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, and its collaborators murdered and persecuted approximately six million Jews. This came about because of the German belief that they were “racially superior” and the Jews were an alien threat to the German state. For humanity to advance in

“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.

A powerful and provocative graphic novel, Maus, generates a Jewish individual’s life of grotesque and horror. With its ability of perception and interpretation, it tackles the main points of the ominous Holocaust and delivers a spooky aura to the absorbed audience. In comparison to Schindler’s List, the graphic novel shines brightly than the pale movie due to its realism and humor that is constantly present throughout the storyline. The novel has the ability to connect to the audience; thus, it gives an in-depth look and overall comprehension of the massacre that Spiegelman is trying to communicate. The graphic novel, Maus by Art Spiegelman, brings an honest account of the Holocaust to a wide audience because of its historical truth and intriguing viewpoints and characters that shows the effect and process of the genocide.

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.

In Art Spiegelman’s biographical graphic novel Maus 1: My Father Bleeds History, ethnic groups are portrayed as animals to allow the audience to understand the history behind the discrimination of Jewish people during World War Two, and the reasons behind the holocaust; Spiegelman utilizes this comparison to provide a better understand the mindset of the Germans, Jews, and Poles as the genocide began to unfold. Overall, Maus 1 focuses on the story of Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, who lived through the horror that was the holocaust, and his experiences as he tried to survive in Nazi occupied Poland. Therefore, the reason why Spiegelman portrays Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and Poles as pigs is to express how these groups viewed each other and to provide an understanding into the hostility behind anti-Semitism. As well, by using animals as an analogy, Spiegelman ensures that by creating an inhuman feel, the events could be looked at through a critical lens. Due to the relevance behind Maus, many articles were written, analysing the work. The article “Rhetoric Functions of the Infestation Metaphor in Hitler’s Rhetoric” by Steven Perry, provides insight into the origins of the depiction of Jews as rats or mice, and how it led to anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany. Likewise, Sheng-Mei Ma’s article “Mourning with the (as a) Jew: Metaphor, Ethnicity, and the Holocaust in Art Spiegelman’s Maus,” and “Well Intended Liberals Slop: Allegories of Race in Spiegelman’s Maus” by Andrew Loman