How Is Vladek Selfish

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.

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 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

Vladek feels neither joy nor sadness. Although he did not want to kill another human being, he did not want to be killed himself, pushing him to keep shooting.

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.

There are many ways the Holocaust affected Vladek’s personality traits and behavior. A huge catastrophic event like the Holocaust can cause one to have emotional damage that could cause them to act a certain way after being mistreated for so long. Trauma is a result of going through a terrible experience at a certain point in your life. It is almost inevitable that there will be some type of mental issue after experiencing such a horrible event. There is no doubt that some of Vladek’s personality traits were gained from experiencing the horrible things that took place during the Holocaust and also being treated very unfairly. There is evidence that show that it can be very difficult in trying to keep a clear mind and trying to stay calm at times. Vladek seems to have some very negative personality traits.

It's obviously showed that with Vladek actions towards people we can understand why they feel so low. Vladek throughout the story, he stresses the importance of his heart (comparing himself of how heroic and very strong he use to be). "It's good for my heart..the pedaling.." (1 12) All the sweat, blood and tears (energy) it took to survive the Holocaust seems to build up and haunt Vladek as present (life now). He needs to know that everyone ages and he has to accept the fact that he's getting old and he cannot be what he once was and that's young again doing all the skillful things he use to do.

Another form of guilt I see is from the Vladek toward Anja. In 1944, he and Anja left Srodula and moved to Sosnowiec. After they left Srodula, all their hiding places were temporary and unreliable. Vladek realized if Germany occupies the country there is nothing left for him and Anja in Poland and there will be no chance for them to live without fear. so Vladek tells Mrs. Kawka he would do anything to get out of Poland and Mrs. Kawka tells him about smugglers, taking people to Hungary. But as the comic expresses she was clearly involved. However, Vladek so eager to get to Hungary, he could not see that. Meeting with the smugglers, he meets Mr. Mandelbaum, an Spiegelmans who owned a sweets shop once along with his wife, and his nephew, Abraham. Vladek is not sure whether to trust the smugglers so, Abraham volunteers to go with the smugglers first, then to write if everything is safe.

Vladek went through the various Nazi genocide stages as brought out by Raul Hilberg. According to Hilberg, the four distinct phases of the Holocaust were identification, economic discrimination, and separation, concentration, and extermination. Although Vladek was not eventually exterminated, his close relatives and friends did not survive the lethal last stage through the various sugar-coated tactics employed by the Germans. The essay will scrutinize these Holocaust stages and relate them to the life events of the Vladek, the main character in Maus 1 and 2 written by Art Spiegelman. The works of other scholars in predicting the impacts of the Holocaust will also be looked at.

We can read Maus from a historical standpoint. The Holocaust is a deeply etched fallacy that took the lives of millions of innocent people. By reading Maus we can explore the historical downfall of mankind and the side effects that such a traumatic event. Throughout both books, Vladek is portrayed as a cynical and angered individual, which can only mean that whatever happened inside the concentration camps changed the way he saw the world. It’s unfortunate that this event had to happen, but like the saying goes what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Since Vladek survived the Holocaust it’s understandable the way in which thinks and acts. The way in which Vladek acts allows for us to explore history through the eyes of someone who was actually there during this time and not by an author who wasn’t there. Because we have this opportunity to explore history through someone’s eyes, we are able to see the devastation and the torment that these individuals went

(pg. 39, The Perversion of Loss) He feels guilty about having been born after the Holocaust, and that his parents had to live through it, while his life has been easy. This strains Art and pushes him further away from his father, when he asks himself which of his parents he would save from a concentration camp he tends to pick his mother. This guilt is visible when Art is talking to his wife and tells her that he “somehow wishes he could have be in Auschwitz with his parents, so he could really know what they lived through.”

Maus is a graphic novel that features Art Spiegelman as he interviews his father, Vladek, about his experience during the Holocaust. His father, Vladek, is elderly and has a troubled marriage. He is a very frugal person and does not like to spend his money. The book goes into detail about Vladek’s life as he goes from being wealthy to living in poverty. He goes through two marriages and raises his son. The author shows the characters in the book as Jewish mice, the Polish people as pigs, and the Nazis as cats. This is to dehumanize the tragic events of the Holocaust. Vladek’s will to live is strong and this allows him to live through the horrors of concentration camps. He was separated from his wife, nearly starves to death, watches his friends

When one cannot deal with guilt within oneself, the feeling of guilt can be transferred to affect another. Art struggles throughout his life to understand why he never had a great relationship with his father. After trying to write with no luck, Art heads to his regular appointment with Pavel, another Holocaust survivor. Pavel suggests that maybe “(Vladek) took his guilt out on YOU, where it was safe… on the REAL survivor.” (7, p 44) Vladek felt guilty about surviving the Holocaust, but instead of accepting it,

Art’s choice to include a 2-page prologue before the beginning of the book proper helps to very clearly illustrate the relationship that Art and Vladek have had up until the beginning of the book. Art is abandoned by his friends, and his father attempts to comfort him, however this appears to Art, and therefore the reader, as more of a comparison between Vladek’s experiences during the holocaust and Art’s childhood suffering, especially with the mention of “no food for a week”, which Art has utilised to create a sense of emotional distance, of an incompatibility between the two.

The graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman conveys many varied and powerful themes to the reader. Spiegelman has conveyed the themes Guilt and Survival by using various methods including narration, dialogue and several comic book techniques to show the expressions and feelings of the central characters. Guilt is an especially strong theme in Maus, appearing many times with Art and Vladek. Survival is another primary theme in Maus. Images are used by Spiegelman to display the ways that Vladek survived during the Holocaust.