Theme Of Guilt In Maus

The Holocaust, yet another unpleasant time in history tainted with the blood and suffering of man. Human beings tortured, executed and starved for hatred and radical ideas. Yet with many tragedies there are survivors, those who refused to die on another man’s command. These victims showed enormous willpower, they overcame human degradation and tragedies that not only pushed their beliefs in god, but their trust in fellow people. It was people like Elie Wiesel author of “Night”, Eva Galler,Sima Gleichgevicht-Wasser, and Solomon Radasky that survived, whose’ mental and physical capabilities were pushed to limits that are difficult to conceive. Each individual experiences were different, but their survival tales not so far-reaching to where the fundamental themes of fear, family, religion and self-preservation played a part in surviving. Although some of these themes weren’t always so useful for survival.

Furthermore, Appelfeld also isolated himself to hide his true identity, however he was also isolated during the beginning of his new life as the result of a language barrier with his own people, which further resulted in suppressing the anger he felt towards his parents for straying away from the Jewish culture. The abandonment of Tzili’s family, mistreatment of other people she encountered, and the stillbirth of her baby are just a few points of sadness expressed within the story. These situations of sadness help express what it might have been like to live through such a horrific event as the Holocaust. This is done by paralleling these stories and using a fictitious work, Tzili, to accentuate key points in Appelfeld’s own true story of survival.

The emotional connection Wiesel has to the injustice and inhumane acts from other people being a survivor from the Holocaust

The aim of this book review is to analyze Night, the autobiographical account of Elie Wiesel’s horrifying experiences in the German concentration camps. Wiesel recounted a traumatic time in his life with the goal of never allowing people to forget the tragedy others had to suffer through. A key theme introduced in Night is that these devastating experiences shifted the victim 's view of life. By providing a summary, critique, and the credentials of the author Elie Wiesel, this overview of Night will reveal that the heartbreaking events of the Holocaust transformed the victims outlook, causing them to have a lack of empathy and faith.

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 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.

The Spiegelman family and their comrades were trying to be compassionate and help someone that they identified with, someone who, through a shared desperate situation (or so they thought) they tried to befriend. Unfortunately, he was so quick to turn his back on the people who had treated him so kindly.

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.

The average person’s understanding of the Holocaust is the persecution and mass murder of Jews by the Nazi’s, most are unaware that the people behind the atrocities of the Holocaust came from all over Europe and a wide variety of backgrounds. Art Spiegelman’s Maus: a Survivor’s Tale, Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution, and Jan Gross’s Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedbwabne, Poland, all provides a different perspective on how ordinary people felt about their experiences in the Holocaust both perpetrators and victims.

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,

In the story of Maus, guilt is portrayed in many different ways throughout the entirety of the story. We not only see guilt through Vladek as a post survivor of the Holocaust but also through Artie as he learns what happened during the times that his dad suffered through his past. Does the evidence of guilt from the characters in the story of Maus negatively affect the relationship between Artie and Vladek? If so does this contribute to the way they communicate, making it hard for Artie to truly know what happened during the Holocaust? The story of Maus is a book based off a book being written by Artie from the experience that Vladek went through. Sometimes the relationship they have, makes it hard for Artie to tell a story without being too biased and basing it off of emotions towards his father.

Everyone experiences emotional and physiological obstacles in their life. However, these obstacles are incomparable to the magnitude of the obstacles the prisoners of the Holocaust faced every day. In his memoir, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, illustrates the horrors of the concentration camps and their mental tool. Over the course of Night, Wiesel demonstrates, that exposure to an uncaring, hostile world leads to destruction of faith and identity.

The terrors of the Holocaust are unimaginably destructive as described in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. The story of his experience about the Holocaust is one nightmare of a story to hear, about a trek from one’s hometown to an unknown camp of suffering is a journey of pain that none shall forget. Hope and optimism vanished while denial and disbelief changed focus during Wiesel’s journey through Europe. A passionate relationship gradually formed between the father and the son as the story continued. The book Night genuinely demonstrates how the Holocaust can alter one's spirits and relations.

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.

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.