The Use Of Animals In Maus By Art Spiegelman

After the Sivalinga stone is stolen from the village, all of their crops burn and the village enters an extreme famine. The people ask Indy to help them retrieve the sacred stone and free their children

Art Spiegelman, the author of the highly acclaimed graphic novel, Maus, portrays the characters in his book in a very distinctive and potent way. Spiegelman’s novel chronicles the life of his father, Vladek, who is a Holocaust survivor. He uses racial stereotypes to depict each character by his or her nationality; Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs. This unique portrayal of the characters can be attributed to the positive reception that Maus received upon its release.

Source B, “The Stages of Genocide,” and Source D, “The Terrible Things” by Eve Bunting, both demonstrate how the Holocaust was the responsibility of the people by displaying how other people differentiate ethnic groups. In Source B, “The Stages of Genocide,” Stage 1 states, “People’s differences are not respected. Groups considered as different are often excluded from certain activities.” To be brief, by including the detail, “People’s differences are not respected,” and “…often excluded from certain activities,” the stage declares that no matter what group a person is in, they will always be differentiated by how they look and the religion they are a part of. Not only will a person will be discriminated, but will also be shut out by other groups who do not accept them as well as appear to only the negative sides of them. In a like manner, “The Terrible Things” by Eve Bunting can also display how people discriminate others. In Source D the following line said by the Big Rabbit, “But the Terrible Things don’t

Spiegelman is an American born cartoonist and editor born in 1948. He has been extremely successful throughout his career, working for numerous comic lines. There’s no doubt that Maus certainly was his greatest work. You could consider Spiegalman’s experience to be his best credential. Maus is a graphic novel that depicts basically a cat and mouse representation of the Holocaust. A graphic novel as defined by Webster’s dictionary is a “fictional story that is presented in comic strip format and published as a book.”(1) Maus tells the story of Spiegelmans father, and his experience as a Jew during the Holocaust. A subtopic within the novel includes Spiegelman interviewing his father, Vladek, and getting him to tell his story. All of the characters and countries are represented by animals that depict the characters role within the story.

On page sixty two the author uses the disfigurement of the map of the camp to make the book seem almost like a scrap book. The main purpose of the book is to illustrate how real the long-term effects of The Holocaust and how it has drastically change a normal families life.  By making the book seem more like a scrap book he makes the memories of what his father was put through a permanent part of his family's history that, later on, his children and grandchildren will look back on.  To continue with this technique, on page thirty four Spiegleman draws the picture of the mice(Jews) seeing the Nazi flag from their window to show the severity of the situation.  By making this situation so much larger to the reader Spiegleman attempts to make the reader feel the fear that the Jews felt in that moment. This was the first time Vladek saw the Nazi symbol. Cells, such as this, serve as backdrops to show how widespread and inescapable the Holocaust was. By making situations such as those larger and more significant to the reader Spiegleman attempts to make the situations at hand seem much

Jew’s that lived in Germany or Poland in the late 1930’s and 1940’s lived under constant fear for being found. A Jew’s life during this time consisted of hiding from the ruthless Nazi campaign. These grim times pressured many Jews to change their appearance and lifestyle in order to blend in with the non-Jewish crowd. This act of concealment was displayed particularly effectively in the Art Spiegleman’s Maus: A Survivors Tale. In this graphic novel Spiegleman portrayed his father’s survival stories of the holocaust with mice as Jews, cats as Germans, pigs as Poles, and more animals for different racial backgrounds. As depicted on page 136, the mice would sometimes wear pig mask in order to disguise themselves as Poles, and in this case they

Stone outlines the misunderstandings, suffering and enmity between two brothers. The story is about a strained relationship between two brothers who reside in Harlem. Sonny and the narrator have a long history of misunderstanding which is later settled after the death of Grace (narrator’s daughter). The narrator further points out how grace in the bible symbolizes God’s mercy. The story portrays the racial inequality in Harlem as well as the decayed urban landscapes that exists today. It also outlines how Christian teachings help Christ followers to realize their sins and turn

The novel “Maus” is a story based on Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. In the Maus, it goes back and forth between two first person narrators, which is Valdek and Art. Art Spiegelman is the author of the graphic novel Maus and the co-narrator. Artie Spiegelman tell his story in first perspective about his conflicted relationship with his father. Art Spiegelman tape records his father testament, takes notes, and researches his parents past experiences during the Holocaust. In addition, Vladek Speigeleman is a first person narrator that tells his story about his life during the Holocausts. However, Maus is a strange combination of memoir and non-fiction told through a comic. Consequently, Vladek and Artie are two unreliable

The overall essence of the stones in this short story is filled with hostility and malicious actions, which no one expected. The fact that the village had thrown away all

“One cannot look deeply into the eyes of an animal and not see the same depth, complexity and feeling we humans lay exclusive claim to.” – Nan Sea Love. The discussion of the persona of animals and humans is an ongoing topic. Today, scientists with diverse worldviews influence both the young and old minds of individuals with their theories and philosophies based on observations and statistics. Society, as a whole, struggles with the connotation of animals portraying human traits and vice versa.

Thesis: Art Spiegelman writes about the pain and suffering that the jews endured during the Holocaust. In Muas 1 Spiegelman writes about the slow oncoming of the holocaust through the eyes of Vladek a relatable character to show the harm and pain that it inflicted on his life.

Thirty years ago, Art Spiegelman published the book Maus about his father’s experience through the Holocaust and most importantly his survival. Taking a closer look at Maus it is seen that he uses many forms of symbolism within this story in order to portray his meaning more prudently. It is probably one of the most obvious features present when first reading this graphic novel. Why does he choose to use animals in the telling of his story? Each animal portrays a specific group and it also comes with those similar characters. Spiegelman’s father, a Jew, and all the other Jewish during the Holocaust are portrayed as Mice who are vulnerable and can be easily taken advantage of. The Germans are portrayed as cats who catch mice as their prey. The

Shelton describes about how younger stones want to move more than the older stones want them to. In addition, he goes on to illustrate how each and every stone went on a journey. He lastly decides to explain the experiences both generations of stones may share. “The Stones”, a short story by Richard Shelton shows that the differences shared between younger and older generations outweigh the similarities that is bonded between them as well. The family ties and bonds that the stones share go to show that there are definitely some similarities between each generation of stones, no matter what their age.

The Maus chain of books express a very phenomenal story about Vladek, which is Art Spiegelman father, single man’s experience in the Holocaust. The author doesn’t convey the story in the traditional novel manner. Instead, the books take on a style that uses comic frames as a way of carrying the story. The most notorious features of this technique were the usage of animals to represent different races of individuals. Utilizing animals as a human races demonstrate to the reader the concepts of the Holocaust, a lot more influentially and forcefully than merely utilizing humans as the characters.

Maus is successful by the special way of describing a historical tragedy, the whole story is written in graphic memoir. Art Spiegelman uses animals to represent each category of character in the story, and each animal has a certain meaning. He replaces cats as Nazis, pig as Polish, dog as Americans, and mouse, just like the title of the story, Jews. We associate with Tom and Jerry which is cats chasing mouse when we think of mice. Nazi, which is cats, treat Jews like hunting mice.