Category: Maus

Looking for Connections

The two most shocking stories that depict the life paved with sufferings in the most explicit way, The Dew Breaker and Maus do have much in common. Because of the air of despair that the two stories are pierced through with, they seem to have many points of contact. Despite the seeming difference in the details of each of the seven stores, there is the invisible and almost intangible connection between the seven parts of the book.

It is quite peculiar that the Ka family, appearing in the first story, is intertwined with Nadines life further on, as Danticat moves further on in his story of a million of lives making the elements of the whole. Another peculiar connection that can be made here is the sequence of events occurring in Michels life. Once appearing as a tenant sharing a dwelling with Dany, this character further on appears in Monkeys Tail for the readers to see the way this personality develops.

When Life Goes in Spirals

Art Spiegelman had seated himself in the chair comfortably and was watching Edwidge Dandicat browse through Maus. Dandicat lifted his eyes and nodded.

It burns my fingers. Literally. He fell silent for a moment, and then added, And my eyes, too.

Have you ever asked yourself a question, whats the point of this mental torture? Spiegelman wondered. What is the use of reviving the most painful experience of the past?

That is the question, Dandicat agreed in a mock-Shakespearean manner. In fact, this helps to reevaluate the event of the past, see some people in the other way. That is a way to shed some light on the situation. Thats what happens in Maus, If I am not mistaken. It is much like the story told in Maus in a train, the one about one fellows cousin what lived in Germany (Spiegelman 33)

I agree, Spiegelman nodded. That was your idea in The Book of Dead. This is all about the attempts to understand the past and make the other see it with your own eyes. As your character, Ka, said, It was hardly revolutionary, rough and not too detailed, minimalist at best, but it was my favorite of all my attempted representations of my father  that is rather fine definition of what we have created, isnt it?

Exactly, Dandicat said.

What Makes One Cause Pain

Ridden with pan and sorrow, both stories not only tell about the sufferings of the victims, but also reveal certain traits of their torturers character. One of the most crucial problems of the two stories is the answer to the question, What makes those people torture the others?

The answer, plain and terrifying, is lying on the surface. It is all the fear that makes these butchers pursue heir victims and cause them pain. Once the torturers disobey, they will share the fate of their victims, and this is the main reason for the brutes to continue committing their crimes: This man who cut my face, he continues, I shot and killed him, like I killed many people. (Dandicat 22)

In Quest for Hope

Despite the terrible things that occur in The Dew Breaker, it still seems that there is some hope left. Learning to understand what makes people fear and act against their will, one can see the ways to fight the both. The Dew Breaker helps to deal with the readers own fears and overcome them, which means that there is still some hope for happiness to come.

Works Cited

Edwidge Danticat. The Dew Breaker. New York City, NY: Vintage Books, 2007. Print.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus. London, UK: Penguin Books, 1991. Print.

The Holocaust of the Jewish nation during World War II is one of the most tragic episodes in the history of mankind. Literature, as a form of art created to reflect the reality as such addresses the topic of the Holocaust rather often, but the means of its depicting typically remain the same, as scholars resort to documentation overview and historical analysis. The short stories Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman are the examples of the innovative, not traditional approach to the topic of the Holocaust. In his Maus II, Art Spiegelman depicts the legacy of Holocaust using the animal images and comic book techniques.

The interesting point about the short story by Art Spiegelman is the fact that this work of art uses the comic book technique to represent the events of the past and their effects upon the present. Depicting the controversial feelings of Art, one of the main heroes of Maus II, Art Spiegelman tries not only to reflect his personal memories about his familys being among the prisoners of Auschwitz, but also reflects on the complexity of guilt experienced by his generation: I guess its some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did& (Speigelman (1993) as cited in Lauter, 2009, p. 780). Thus, apart from the historical perspective, Art Speigelman considers the moral and emotional perspectives of Holocaust.

The memory of the next generation, in relation to the generation that lived through World War II and the Holocaust, is a crucial concept in the present. Therefore, Art Spiegelman shows how much the people that did not see the horrors of Auschwitz want to save the memories of their parents, and how difficult, at the same time, it is for them to reproduce the memories of actual Auschwitz prisoners: Reality is too complex for comics&so much has to be left out or distorted (Speigelman (1993) as cited in Lauter, 2009, p. 781). The example of this controversy of wishes and actual opportunities is Art with whose considerations and moral dilemmas Maus II begins.

Analysis of the issue of the legacy of the Holocaust is a complex task. It involves understanding the nature of the peoples experiences about the Holocaust as well as the mentality of next generations that display certain guilt for being placed into easier living conditions than their parents and grandparents. The example of Art from Maus II can serve as a bright illustration to this point. Being a son of the former Auschwitz prisoner Vladek, Art tries to reflect his fathers experiences in a comic book but soon realizes that alone he is unable to render the actual emotions and pain of the Holocaust as he did not experience it. So, he is partly afraid of distorting the truth or being forced to drop certain details. Here, the legacy of the Holocaust is observed again; this time in the mentality of people.

Thus, the short story Maus II by Art Spiegelman is not only a comic book considering the Holocaust experiences of the authors father Vladek, but also an insight into the mind of the next generations of people some of who often have respect for Holocaust victims, while others feel free to interpret the events of the World War II without confirmation from those who actually know the truth.

Works Cited

Lauter, Paul (Gen. Ed.) The Heath Anthology of American Literature: Contemporary Period (1945 to the Present). Cengage Heinle, 2009. Print.

The novel begins with a young writer called Art, asking his father about his World War II experiences so that he can record them and come-up-with a book regarding those experiences. Intertwined throughout the story is the turbulent and pragmatic relationship between Art and his elderly father. His fathers story starts when he met Anja (Arts mother), who committed suicide after the warfare.

This was the root of the overwrought relationship that existed between Vladek and his son because he held his father responsibly. Vladek is affected by the Holocaust specter which partially leads to personal traits like aversion to waste and tightfistedness; this infuriates and aggravates his son. Their relationship is continually strained because of these traits/qualities; the pressure also burdens Art.

Vladek and Art are not friendly or close: they are not comfortable with each other. Art feels guilty because he thinks that he does not treat his father as he ought to. Art says that, he is not close to his father and that he has not seen him for some time. In a different scene, Art smashes his roller skate and his friends end up skating without him: this happens to many children all over the world and parents comfort them when confronted with such a situation.

In Arts case, his father starts to evaluate that situation in-reference-to the Holocaust (Spiegelman, 102). Vladek seemed like he compares everything to the Holocaust and this strained his relationship with the son. Art was also obsessed with the Holocaust because those thoughts filled his fathers mind. Their relationship was not an easy one and they did not feel close like fathers and sons ought to be; Art felt guilty about it. The quilt is a central theme in the story.

Works cited

Ousmane, Sembene. Gods Bits of Wood (Heinemann African Writers Series). USA: Heinemann.1995. Print.

Every book, article, or journal always has specific themes that summarize the information contained in such texts. Themes are important elements in any textual composition as they help the reader and listeners to understand in brief what is contained in a given textual analysis. Due to the significant role played by the theme in textual analyses, this essay will focus on discussing the central themes evident in the two readings Maus by Art Spiegelman and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin. To complete this comparison and analysis, this paper will separately discuss the central themes of fear, sacrifice and suffering, language, and utopia as presented in the two texts.

As an initial summary of Maus, this textual reading presents a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, who was an American scholar. The text was composed between 1980 and 1991 and has various themes which summarize the key information contained in the reading. In summary, this text presents an interview between Spiegelman and his father who narrates to him how he survived the Holocaust. Additionally, the story builds on the strained relationship between Spiegelman and his father and how this was related to the absence of his mother who committed suicide when he was 20 years old. Therefore, the central themes in this textual analysis that are portrayed are language, fear, and sacrifice.

The language in Maus demonstrates the unimportance of grammatically correct English and the ability to use language to lighten a dark topic. Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, has extremely broken English. However, despite this difficulty in language experienced by Vladek, his knowledge of the English language enables him to accomplish several things throughout the story such as using it to meet Anja, his first wife. Additionally, he uses the language to befriend a French international during World War II and continues to communicate with his new-found friend in English after the war. In establishing this new friendship, the Frenchman shares his packages of food with Vladek which ultimately saves his life. When he moved to America, English enabled Vladek to recount his Holocaust experience to his son and the American soldiers as he could not use his mother tongue anymore in this new environment. Shifting away, Spiegelman illustrates various points throughout the story that contain humor, making a difficult topic easier to read. In the beginning of chapter one Vladek tells Art, “Better you should spend your time to make drawings what will bring you some money…” (Spiegelman, 12). Although this is not blatantly humorous, it is a slight at Art that opens the story in a light manner. Language is an important theme throughout Maus and Spiegelman does an excellent to illustrate this.

Another theme evident in this reading is fear. Spiegelman demonstrates fear in many ways through the text in the manner he reacted to events that took place before and during the period the text was composed. Having survived the Holocaust horror, Spiegelman is frightened by the death of his brother, Richieu, who was a victim of the Holocaust disaster. Chapter eight of the text begins with the description of fear that engulfed Spiegelman upon reflecting on the six million corpses of the Jews which formed the foundation of Maus’ story. Upon consulting a psychiatrist, Spiegelman is informed that his father, Vladek was living with a lot of guilt inside him for surviving the Holocaust horror and for subsequently outliving his eldest son, who was swiped away by this horrific happening. Art finds it difficult to believe this and to paint his father in such an unflattering manner. Since Spiegelman had not lived in the camps by himself, he remains in fear in trying to explain the so-called separate universe as told by his psychiatrist.

One of the evident themes in this text is the sacrifice. The theme of sacrifice was majorly experienced during the Holocaust horror, where it was claimed that the six million Jewish who perished during this disaster were sacrificed. Throughout Maus, it is clear to see the effect of surviving the Holocaust has on Vladek and his appreciation of those who sacrificed. Vladek puts thought and care into each decision in his life because he knows the added value of the so-called sacrifice he and other Jews endured. Additionally, although we are made aware that Spiegelman’s sacrifices were considered smaller compared to those made by his parents and grandparents, these sacrifices remain to be important milestones in Art’s life. For instance, he sacrificed his vacation to go and be with his father, Vladek when his second wife, Mala left. This happened after Vladek’s wife had committed suicide. While it might not be that apparent, Vladek did appreciate Art’s sacrifice of his own time to assist him. I believe sacrifice is one of the most important themes of this story because it presents itself in various ways.

Transitioning to The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, this story is an ironic and sarcastic event that crowds its entire description. One central question one may be asked just before reading this text is whether a person would comfortably walk away in the presence of a suffering child who in one way or another may require assistance. This story describes a situation where the society prefers community happiness to individual happiness, such that when one is suffering, no one cares to come to the assistance of the child because they are satisfied with their current situations. But how can community happiness outweigh individual happiness and how can a community derive its happiness from an individual’s suffering? For this discussion, the essay focuses on the following themes as portrayed in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin; the language used, the relationship between happiness and suffering, and the utopia.

Language is a key theme within this story. The colorful and descriptive word choice Le Guin uses paints a vivid picture in the reader’s mind. The story begins with a scene of festivals and celebrations. “In the streets between houses and red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved” (Le Guin, 7). As the reader, you can picture yourself taking part in these great celebrations. The word choice is repetitive throughout the story and is able to keep the reader entertained. Le Guin successfully manages to use language to bring out this celebration and utopia to life, but consequently admits that this utopia is not factual just imaginary. In fact, as the author presents the story, the Omelas in question has no actual existence but only exists in the people’s mindsets and states that since people are different in the society, they may imagine their Omelas and walk away from them in the pursuit of individual happiness. Thus, people are at liberty to envision their future and how they may want to be happy. What matters most is the place of perfect happiness, otherwise known as utopia.

When it comes to the relationship of happiness and suffering, Omelas is the ideal situation. Whereas Omelas describes a place of suffering, utopia on the other hand, means a place of happiness, thus the reason why people walk away from Omelas to find their own utopia. However, as evident in the text, the utopia events suddenly change into the suffering of a child who is in dire need of help. The narrator uses the suffering child’s situation to strike a relationship between suffering and happiness, maintaining that it is not possible to have happiness without suffering and vice versa. Whereas the child’s suffering needs immediate attention, people continue with their celebration and intend to use this as a lesson to enlighten the generations of the sufferings their ancestors went through for them to enjoy their freedom today. This theme aims at answering the question; should our happiness be justified by the suffering of others? Upon learning of the suffering child’s situation, what was the reaction of the people in the utopia, did they stop the celebrations and come to the rescue of the child or did they go their separate ways, not caring? Unfortunately, the majority of people continue with their celebrations and happiness and what comes out is that an individual’s happiness is built on someone else’s suffering. Conversely, there are some that choose to walk away from Omelas with a newfound question of happiness and utopia.

Maus by Art Spiegelman and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin present similar themes relating to their contextual descriptions. A deeper analysis of each text revealed the above information, where there were areas of consensus between themes such as suffering and language. Themes are essential elements to books and stories that help guide the reader to understand the text.

Works Cited

1. K., Le Guin Ursula. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. XanEdu, 2017.
2. Spiegelman, Art. Maus: a Survivors Tale. Pantheon, 2011.

Maus is a two-volume graphic novel written by Art Spiegelman from the visits he made to New York to visit his father, Vladek. Vladek was a survivor of the Holocaust and Polish Jew living, his survival and the visits that Art made helped create this graphic novel. This story analyzes the relationship between Art and his father, Vladek. Vladek is portrayed as ambitious lighthearted young man and as his story unravels from his recollections of the horrors that the Holocaust brought him, that Vladek becomes the way he is after he is placed in a hellish prison by Hitler, an awful man. Behind all of the trauma that these concentration camps have affected Vladek in the past, Art comes to terms with the way that this changed his father. His character has been shaped completely due to the Holocaust and throughout the story you are able to see that Vladek cannot lead a normal life after this trauma. In the story, each character was given animal names such as: cats, mice, frogs. The cats preying on the mice in the comic are portrayed as how the Jews, that were mice, were massacred by the cats.

This issue of the Holocaust has affected both Art and Vladek. Vladek reveals some traumatic characteristics from the Holocaust which reflect his relationships with others. His life started from nothing, and then he had married Anja, which turned his life around. His life was full of happiness until the German invasion happened, he lost everything including his son, Richiue. All of this trauma affected his mental state and behavior, hence the drifting from Art and his second wife, Mala.

The techniques of juxtaposition and the framing oppose the thoughts that were attained and put together Arts conversations with Vladek’s past. This use was formed from Vladek’s manner of telling his story in order for Art to create this comic it had to follow in order. The use of this helped the author put together the originality of the story.

The way that Art used dark comics to form this novel showed the reality of what Vladek really lived through. The Holocaust was a very dark and horrific time and by using the shading technique that Art did, helps the audience feel what Vladek was feeling and see what Vladek saw. Personally, I grew up learning about the Holocaust at a young age because I had family members that were a part of it, and I was always told that this was one of the most important things being a Jew. While reading this story, I appreciated how each panel was drawn in a gloomy and dismal way, so that people really understand what was going on during this time. Sometime images speak louder than words itself, and that’s what I think Art wanted to portray while writing this comic.

The visual style that Art chose to use distances this comic from Spiegelman’s past. However, this style uses humor in his work, while also utilizing some metaphor. The illustrations of Jews as mice and Nazis as cats were used so the reader can associate these certain characteristics to the animal’s characteristics. For example, the mice are drawn to be helpless and anxious which makes sense for them to represent the Jews because they were the prey for the Nazis. On the other hand, the Nazis were represented as cats which acted powerful which also makes sense because the Nazis became in charge of the Jews and took advantage of them. This also makes sense because if you think, the size of cats compared to the size of mice, cats are much larger than mice which is why how Art characterized the Nazis and Jews, it was easy to understand why he did that. There was one part in Volume 2, chapter 2 that I thought was very interesting. Art appears not as a mouse, but a human with a mouse mask on. You can see that during this part of the story, Art seems to be struggling, his father had passed away and Art has been put under so much weight after writing this comic. This is an example of how Art incorporates the transitions of past and present throughout the novel, the chapter starts out saying “time flies…” and then after Art himself speaks about the troubles he is running into, the chapter goes to “and so…” which carries on with Vladek’s life story in Auschwitz.

Spielgelman used the past and present transitions to show Vladek’s recollection of his memories and to re-create it into a comic. This is definitely one way that brings out originality in Art’s work and it also helps the reader understand the growth of Vladek’s story.

He used this to paint a clear picture of these horrific for the readers. Incorporating both the past and the present events, they mesh together in a way that shows the difficult experiences that Vladek went through and his relationship with his son, Art.

I enjoyed that this graphic novel was displayed as a graphic novel, and I think that it engaged the reader more if it would be a normal story without the descriptive panels, the way that it was shown. The Holocaust is a very hard time in a lot of people’s life, and it impacted my life, which. Makes me appreciate that Art turned his father’s story into a comic book because it gives the reader a real look into someone’s horrible life during that time.

Overall, Maus not only portrayed the terrible horrors the Vladek went through during the Holocaust, but also the fact that Art felt that disconnect with his father who had survived this devastation. It’s true that many family members of Holocaust survivors go through the same thing that Art did, I can account for it because I have a family member who was in a similar position. In the piece written in the middle of the comic, Prisoner on the Hell Planet, which was something that demonstrated Art’s own feelings because it is about how he got through a painful loss of his mother dying from suicide.

More people in Auschwitz died than in any other Nazi concentration camp. Could you live bearing the fact that your life was at stake for just being yourself? Faith is required to keep hope, when we also see people’s vulnerabilities, we grow closer. Night by Elie Weisel is a strong example of this belief. In this book, a father and son are required to sustain by only having faith in each other. They are trapped like many Jewish people in this time of history in Auschwitz. Their life now consists of waiting for the next meal to arrive. All their lifelong dreams and desires vanish before their eyes and now they are forcefully kept in the control of the ruthless officers at this death camp. To survive in these harsh conditions Eliezer and his father can solely have faith in each other to keep them from losing hope in life. In the Comic Maus by Art Spiegelman, the father-son relationship differs vastly from Night. Artie the son of Holocaust survivor Vladek has a very distant relationship with each other. Artie is writing a comic about his father’s stories during the Holocaust, now they are forced to spend a lot more time together. The father-son relationship in each book evolves throughout the whole story for the better. Relationships improve when you communicate your emotions. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel and Maus by Art Spiegelman, the authors demonstrate how traumatic experiences can bring relationships closer or farther. By examining the relations between the father and son, the reader can clearly see the impact the Holocaust left on their bond.

At the start of the book Night, Elie and his father’s relationship is different from what it was when they were taken to camp. Before getting taken away Shlomo’s attention is more on his everyday responsibilities and the predicaments with the community, the Jewish in Sighet held him in the greatest esteem. They often used to consult him about public and even private matters. “He was more concerned with others than with his own family.”(Wiesel, 2) He has a distant relationship with everyone in his family because he cares more about what other people think. Shlomo never really displays any of his feelings publicly. Eliezer found him to be a “rather unsentimental man. There was never any display of emotion, even at home.”(2) They did not seem to have a close bond since Eliezer only sees him as emotionless. They probably never even spend quality father-son time together since he was in such a respected position in the community and was always busy.

When Eliezer and Shlomo get to Auschwitz their whole relationship changes because they are now dependent on each other for hope. Elie and his father live and work side by side every living moment. Shlomo is not just a dad anymore, he is a mom, brother, sister to Eliezer. He is Eliezer’s world. ‘My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him.’ (30) Being in this dangerous game of life also requires Eliezer to look out for his father every step of the way. Later Shlomo starts to become ill and weak, Eliezer starts to resent him. When his father is beaten, Elie is frustrated at his father, not the SS officer. “What is more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why could he not have avoided Idek’s wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me.”(52)Auschwitz turns father in opposition to son and son towards father. Though Eliezer in no way becomes as dehumanized as other people in camp. Because of the situation he has been compelled into he struggles with resentment against his father, even if Eliezer rationally should direct his bad emotions against guards who imprison him. On the inside, Eliezer will never give up on his father no matter how tiring it is to take care of him. ”Father!’ I howled. ‘Father! Get up! Right now! You will kill yourself…'(123) In this horrifying scene of Night, Elie and his father are migrating to another camp. His father collapses to the floor as if he was giving up. Shlomo tells Eliezer to go without him so he could finally die in peace. Eliezer would never allow this to happen, Shlomo is not the only one whos dependant. Without him there is no hope left for Eliezer in the world. This displays how much Eliezer is willing to struggle for the survival of his dad.

When Artie was young his relationship with his father was not very strong. The graphic novel opens to a scene in Artie’s childhood. Artie is unhappy because he falls in a race with his friends and they leave him behind. He cries to his father, but his father does not have a lot of sympathy because he says that those kids do not know what friends are. He implies that human do not analyze what friends are till they are forced to survive collectively in severe situations, referring to his stories in the Holocaust. Vladek never approached Artie in a fatherly way, he was always emotionless. We know that before the Holocaust Vladek was a really caring individual. He cared about what other people would think based on his actions, but after that traumatic experience, he has lost his core values that made up the old Vladek who could make a wonderful and caring father to Artie. Going through that mental severity has taken a toll on Vladek’s personality. The guards treatment dehumanized him.

When Artie is grown up and independent he chooses to keep a distance from his father. His childhood experience with Vladek has shown him he is better off without him. The Holocaust had changed Vladek’s nature and he became very difficult to deal with. Artie did not personally enjoy Vladek’s company so they grew very distant. But when he is needed to see his father, Artie only goes for the sole purpose of writing his comic. “I went out to see my Father in Rego Park. I had not seen him in a long time-we were not that close.”(Spegielman, 11, 1) Artie went to visit his father after a long time to ask him about his experiences in the Holocaust. In order to make his comics, Artie had to visit Vladek very often. This was an excuse to make their relationship closer. Vladek secretly enjoyed this very much, but could not express it. Artie truly only cared about the stories. Artie felt guilty for being a neglectful son at times, like in chapter five. Vladek wakes his son early in the morning to ask for help fixing a drain on his roof. Artie refuses and tells his wife he would rather feel guilty than travel to Queens to help his father. This guilt especially shows as he almost immediately asks Vladek if he needs help with any chores. Both father and son feel guilt for the way they have shaped their relationships.

Night and Maus have separate father-son bonds because of the difference of exposure they got from each others emotional feelings. Eliezer and Shlomo had a double sided bond when it came to their relationship. They are both dependent on each other for survival. Night shows that pain brings people together, visible in his father’s and his situation where struggle brought their bond closer. They counted on each other for strength when they were frail. This is different from Maus because their affair is mostly one sided, this would not be the cause if Vladek and Artie were more open with their feelings. They never went through a terrifying experience together that forced them to think alike. Artie will never understand what Vladek has gone through, while Eliezer knew his father’s every step. At some point they need to have deep conversations to know what the other really feels on the inside. In life to be close with anyone you need some kind of background together where you can relate with the other in some sort.

Work Cited

1. Spiegelman, Art. Maus. Pantheon Books, 2010.
2. Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library, 2019.

Throughout Maus, readers feel the grief and loneliness Artie conveys through the use of “Prisoner on a Hell Planet,” which is found within chapter five of the novel. Before this, Artie bottled up his emotions, and hid them from the readers as they slowly ate him up from the inside. Leading up to this, Vladek depicts the Holocaust through the use of imagery as he represents his past while dealing with severe negligence and hatred due to his race.

In the first panel on page 103 Artie is seen sitting there with two of his father’s friends as they attempt to comfort him in his time of need. There condolences are brief and don’t make much sense as the man says, “It’s his fault-the punk!” (pg. 103) As seen above the panel though text, this guy is acting out of remorse mixed with anger and has no one to take it out on so he targets Artie. This stirs something dark into Artie’s head as his thoughts begin to spiral into darkness leading to depression. What eats away at him the most though is the fact that Anna didn’t even leave a note making her suicide worse than death itself for him.

In the second panel, Artie’s thoughts are conveyed from what the man said previously under his mom’s corpse sitting in the bathtub. He describes her reason for death as “Menopausal Depression”, but the reader can interpret that Artie’s thoughts are constantly changing as you look further down the second panel. He then says that “Hitler did it!” (pg. 103) but then insults his mother by calling her a “Bitch”. This shows that Artie can’t come to terms with Anna’s death leading himself to look for some kind of blame which is reflected back on her. This then results in a flashback which is seen in the third panel. In this panel Artie recollects how his mom and him were close when he was more youthful.

Later on, in the next panel Artie’s mom enters the room in a depressed state asking Artie if he still loves her. This continues on in the fifth panel as his mom is standing in front of his bed. Seen by the body language of Artie and his response to his mother which is “Sure Ma!” (pg. 103) he doesn’t really seem fazed by the question. This is highly understandable as Artie’s view on his parents seems different in the beginning of “Prisoner on a Hell Planet” leading up to his mother’s death. Artie seems distant in a way from his parents due to his disliked girlfriend and late arrival home. This contradicts the second panel where his father’s friends are showing a book to him and underneath he expressed ‘Mom!’ (pg. 103) as a method for saying that he adored her beyond a reasonable doubt and consistently pondered her as he did when he was nearly nothing. Under this part though, Artie’s mom’s hands are indicated she is cutting herself as a portrayal of her ending it all. Artie composed underneath it ‘Bitch.’ (pg. 103) Both the segment of ‘Mom!’ and ‘Bitch’ appear to go with one another. Craftsmanship is by all accounts attempting to seed the message that he felt regretful in light of the fact that, as a more youthful kid he demonstrated love and warmth to his mom and as time passed by, he fundamentally called her a bitch which may have made her suicide.

Ultimately, in the sixth panel Artie is covering his face while staring into the distance with his psychological emergency clinic clothing. It creates the impression that Artie isn’t all there and that he may going crazy. At the same time though, Artie released right then and there that he was a big factor in his mother’s suicide by the look on his face. As seen in the rest of the panels, the guilt is carried on as Artie is seen behind prison bars slowly rotting away in jail. These bars are metaphorical though and serve as a representation of the part of blame that Artie feels is directed at himself for his part in his mother’s murder. While he sits in prison, he gives his mother one final goodbye as he rips her apart for leaving him on this “Hell of a Planet”. In comparison to the hate Artie is showing towards his mother he says, “You put me here… shorted all my circuits… cut my nerve endings… and crossed my wires!” (pg. 103) This relates to the beginning of “Prisoner on a Hell Planet” when Spiegelman references Artie returning from a mental hospital, due to the fact at this time in era electro-shock therapy was commonly used in mental hospitals as a cure for patients.

This might be because of him attempting to reason about his mom’s demise. During the sequence of panels, the writer attempts to enable the reader to perceive how he felt and the explanation he thought his mom ended it all. These were all explanation that Art at the time found as an approach to himself all together for him not to feel regretful any longer. However, the reader discovers that he didn’t get over it since he distributed the graphic novel years after the fact the comic was arranged. ‘Prisoner on the Hell Planet a case history’ which was where the majority of this panels have originating from. During these two first panels on the segment ‘Prisoner on the Hell Planet a case history’ of page 105 on The Complete Maus the reader not just finds out about the amount Artie endured during this great time. In any case, Art Spiegelman the creator chose to put this segment for an explanation beside clarifying his emotions towards his mom’s suicide.

All of this relates to the fact that Artie’s coping mechanism for his mother’s death was writing and publishing “Prisoner on a Hell Planet” which obviously, wasn’t enough for Artie. On the off chance that the reader can see past the story the person will see that it has an importance in agreement to the book which is about his dad’s story during the Holocaust. The tale of Artie’s mother takes after, his dads’ story and the general story of the book excessively across the board.

Bibliography

1. Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. New York: Pantheon Books, 19861991.

Maus by Art Spiegelman is a graphic novel about a son listening to his father’s experience during the holocaust. The story is a very serious subject, so drawing real looking humans can make people not want to read the book. This is why Spiegelman uses anthropomorphism. If a reader sees an animal, it won’t look as bad and as serious as if it was a drawing a person. The anthropomorphism is also good because the animals symbolize how cats hunt down mice. It is showing how the Germans are hunting down the Jews. Some people think that it is disrespectful to draw races as different animals, but Spiegelman still respects the event and takes it seriously. Art Spiegelman’s use of anthropomorphism helps the story because it makes the story easier to understand because the reader can easily identify the characters, it shows a harsh subject in a lighter manner, it symbolises how animals hunt down other animals.

In Maus anthropomorphism is used to symbolize how cats hunt down mice. The Germans, shown as cats, are looking for and trying to kill the Jews who are shown as mice. The drawings are used to show different races and represent the ways they act. The Jews were shown as mice because they were seen as a lesser race and weak. Art Spiegelman said, “Jews as mice—or rather rats—swarming in a sewer, with a title card that said ‘Jews are the rats’ or the ‘vermin of mankind.’ This made it clear to me that this dehumanization was at the very heart of the killing project,” (Spiegelman). This quote explains why Art Spiegelman decided to draw the Jews as mice. People believed that Jewish people were at the bottom of mankind. Mice are considered to be weak and on the bottom of the food chain, so Spiegelman drew Jews as mice because it symbolizes being weak and being a vermin to society.

The next reason anthropomorphism helps the story is that it shows a harsh subject in a light manner. Showing people as animals makes it easier for people to read. If Spiegelman drew everyone as humans, it would be harder for younger people to read because they would see drawings of dead people. On the other hand, seeing dead mice isn’t as bad. In an article about Maus and how animals were used it says, “When his father tells the story about the hanging of 4 Jews who were dealing in the food coupon black market that grew in Nazi-constructed Jewish ghettos, Spiegelman shows the mice hung for public display,” (Demarco). This quote describes a part in the book. Seeing a drawing of humans hung would be hard for many people to see. Most people would find it disturbing. Drawing the people as mice softens the blow of the harsh reality. Drawing Jews as mice makes it easier for people to look at while still being accurate and showing what went on in real life. This is how anthropomorphism shows a harsh subject in a lighter manner.

The last reason why anthropomorphism makes the story more enjoyable for readers is that it is easy to tell the different races apart. With races as different animals, when one is drawn you can easily tell where they are from and what race they are. In the book, Vladek puts on a pig mask to blend in with the polish people. This makes it easy for the reader to tell how they are blending in and how they are not getting caught. At one point, they are realized and in the book it says, “‘There’s a Jew in the courtyard! Police!’ An old which recognized Anja from her window,” (Spiegelman 137). The woman yelling this is drawn as a pig so you know immediately that she is polish. This provides context as to why she is calling for police about a Jew because you know how polish people feel about Jews. If she was drawn as a human you would not know why she cares of if she is German. Anthropomorphism helps the story because you are able to tell all the different races apart easily based on what animal they are drawn as.

In conclusion, Maus is a book written by Art Spiegelman based on a true story about a Jewish person and how they are trying to escape the Germans. The book uses anthropomorphism to improve the story and make it more enjoyable for the reader. Spiegelman acknowledges that this is a serious subject and should not be taken lightly but anthropomorphism makes a harsh subject lighter and easier to read. Anthropomorphism helps the story because readers can easily tell the difference of all the races, makes a harsh subject lighter, and to symbolize how Germans are constantly hunting down the Jews.

The essay describes how readers can feel empathy for the characters in the Graphic novel Maus, A Holocaust story about the author’s father. Amplification Through Simplification allows readers to plainly see the emotions of characters to empathize with them. How? Why? Cultural Context help make the contents of the novel understandable to people as the events told by the characters is hard to comprehend without visual rhetoric.

Maus is a Holocaust graphic novel by Art Spiegelman. The graphic novel describes the tale of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of the holocaust that is also the cartoonist’s father. The tale of Vladek’s experience describes events before and after the Holocaust[C1] , Told from the perspective of Vladek, he recounts the experiences he had as he is interviewed. Unlike most holocaust stories that only makes you feel sympathy for people who survived the horrific and inhuman things, the graphic novel has us feel empathetic towards the people in the novel by including their lives before the holocaust. Feeling sympathetic only has one emotion to it, sorrow. Having empathy means you feel their pain as well as their joy. To have the reader feel empathetic means that you make the characters in your novel appeal to their emotions. The readers relate to the characters. And unlike other graphic novels, whose art is detailed and colored, the graphic novel is drawn in a simple cartoon style. The cartoon has people represented as anthropomorphic animals and kept in black and white. Although detailed design seems like the best way to show a graphic novel, a simple design allows for greater emphasis on expression and symbolism. People then can relate and empathize with the characters. People today will never fully understand the atrocities done to the Jewish people because Holocaust ended seven decades ago. But people could empathize them with cartoon characters with the uses of visual rhetoric like cultural context and amplification through simplification. this creates empathy with the characters. People then understand how the characters feel, and respond accordingly to the emotions

Amplification through simplification is making something more apparent by simplifying the structure. The graphic novel has simple character designs. People are portrayed as animals with dots as eyes, rough lines are used to make shadows, colors and a variety of expressions. It only takes a few well-placed lines and line impressions to change an expression from normal to intense. A simple head tilt to make the eye lower to the body or a view of the mouth instead of the eyes has us interpret different instances of extreme emotion. Spiegelman, A. (1992) curved lives are drawn on Vladek and his Father in law to convey concern and nervousness for Vladek’s wife as the police search for her as she was involved with communists. Vladek’s first girlfriend is drawn only with her mouth to show her distort as she begs Vladek to stay with her. On page 83 Vladek’s father in law has his eyes lower on his face as he recounts the public hanging. he witnessed. that while keeping the same general shape and simplicity. The same feeling occurs when Art uses simple repetitive hash lines to adds shadows to the characters, in order to group them or add to an already intense emotion. On page 17 the first love of Vladek hears that he is leaving her for a different woman and hash line strokes are put on her face. Showing the audience and intense face that makes the audience uneasy as she stares directly to the audience. Not wanting to let Vladek go, she is determined to have Vladek for herself by any means necessary.

A sense of general placement is made because of the cartoon style. The audience interprets emotions better because of the simplified nature of the cartoon drawings, when we see that the characters are fearing for their lives as death brushes by them in the form of mass genocide. The audience doesn’t just feel sorry for them, they feel afraid like the characters in the novel feel. Pg 123, When Vladek is forced to stay inside an underground bunker for weeks without food or water the audience feels the agony that Vladek endured. We see fifteen mice in a confined space waiting and hoping for the Nazis to clear the area, all while going mad from starvation. The simplicity allows us to live the life that Vladek lived during the holocaust because when “you enter the world of the cartoon—you see yourself” McCloud, S. (1994). Maus has simple designs that focuses on the emotion of character. We empathize with the cartoons we see on the page because we take way the emotion. We put ourselves into the shoes of the characters in the novel because we try and understand the characters with our logic

Similar to expressions and logic, cultural codes also influences our emotions towards the characters. The cultural codes have meaning that also helps us understand why people would do certain actions or respond a certain way to the Holocaust. The graphic novel reduces the characters to animals. Jewish people are depicted as mice and Nazis are cats. From cultural context the audience can find it reasonable to see why the characters are drawn this way. It is a popular idiom in the English language, it involves pursuit, near captures, and repeated escapes. It is also known as a popular meaning for a predator vs prey relationship. In context to the story of Vladek, a Jewish man that repeatedly escapes the grasp of the Nazis, he is pursued and nearly gets captured multiple times. Another reason for the characters portrayed as animals is because of the “national stereotypes offers a conscious [and] reduction and simplification present in many ‘responses’ to the Holocaust.” Spiegelman, A. (1992) The Nazis treated Jewish people less like human, less like animals. Jewish people were considered the vermin of society. Hence the Nazis are animals specifically, cats, the culturally accepted predator of mice.

We abandon our notions of the human conscience. We find it more believable that “both cat and mice lack reason and conscience. As a result, the Nazi cats find no fault in the systematic killing of Jewish mice”. Oliver, A. S. (n.d.) In Maus there was a scene in which the Nazis hung Jews in public to make an example of them. They stood hung for days and the Vladek fearfully tries to find ways to keep his family and himself alive. Spiegelman, A. (1992) To the audience it would be more reasonable to see animals kill other animals. It is part of their instincts, and nature has groomed them to be this way. To show humans killing other humans would have caused the audience to feel less empathetic because human have conscience and reason. People would not understand why humans would hurt other humans. We can empathize with animal fear of being killed by other animals because it is part of nature, it happens all the time, unlike the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was something in history that marks what people could do. Art could not understand It was genocide never seen and people now are unable to empathize with those who survived. His Father could not understand why the holocaust happened. This graphic novel uses principles of visual rhetoric to help the audience empathize with Vladek as they see the story in a more digestible way. The cultural context helps us understand the story. The simple cartoon style and achromatic color scheme keeps the graphic novel stripped to its essential meanings, and our minds can interpret feelings and emotions with our imagination. We have empathy for the characters because the novel uses visual rhetoric to make the event of the holocaust understandable.

References

1. McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics: The invisible art. New York: HarperPerennial.
2. Spiegelman, A. (1992). Maus. New York: Pantheon Books.
3. Oliver, A. S. (n.d.). A Different Type of Holocaust Literature. Retrieved March 14, 2019, from http://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/218/projects/oliver/MausbyAO.htm

In the novel book called Maus, a lot of guilt has been described. Vladek expressed most of his guilt to his son [Art], and Art sense the feeling of guilt he receives from his father. Art was born after the Holocaust; he was growing up in a time of the holocaust survivors. As a child, Art experienced a lot of guilt at a young age that it was affecting their father and son relationship. Art tells Vladek’s wife, “I know this is insane…. Easier life than they did”. (Maus II, 176). He was aware that his life was much easier than Vladek especially since his father went through so much tragedy that can never be compared to the average life that Art lived.

Throughout the entire story, Art feels guilty believing that he was not a decent son to Vladek. The first chapter of the book in Maus I, Art directly starts off the book saying, “I hadn’t seen Vladek in a long time we weren’t that close” (Maus I,13). Even though that Vladek and Art did not live far away from each other, it was very rare for Art to visit his father. Art feels a lot of guilt by not going over to help his dad, causing him to feel like he was not the best son. Art also feels guilty when he thinks about Richieu, his brother that he never met because he died during the Holocaust and before Art was born. The only gift Art has of his dead brother is a photo: “I didn’t think about … was mainly a large, blurry photograph hanging in my parents’ bedroom” (Maus II, 175). Even though Art’s brother is not alive there is still a conflict between the two. Vladek did not want Art to feel like he is battling with his dead brother Richieu. However, Art continues to assemble a sibling jealousy in his own mind, therefor creating a tension between the father-son relation, producing even bigger disparity. Just thinking about the result of the sibling conflict which only existed to Art, he is left with the belief that he will never be a good son to Vladek. “So…are you going out to Queens?” “No way – I’d rather feel guilty! Besides, I am too busy, and he can easily afford to hire somebody.” (Maus I, 99). In this quote for example, Art basically feel guilt for not being helpful to his father which on the other hand, Vladek Expectation seemed to be very unrealistic which lead to Art bound to fail.

It is very valuable to clarify that Art is guilty for many reasons which are different from why Valdeks is guilty. Art felling of guilt comes from Vladek’s guilt, which are back to his survival of the holocaust, “He couldn’t do anything as well as he could” (Maus II, 204). Art was always feeling that his father must be right, and his survival of the holocaust justifies his father even more. Valdek is kind by nature, so Art has trouble contacting and understanding his father. However, Art puts blame onto Vladek’s regarding Anja’s journals. Anja’s diaries are the only memories left after her death which was burned by Vladek’s and caused Art to react in a harsh way, “GOD DAMN YOU! You-You MURDERED! How the hell could you do such a thing!! (Maus I, 161). Art is making his father Vladek feel guilty for burning Anja’s journals. Art does not understand the emotional pain that Anja’s journals were having on Vladek. These differences that Vladek and Art have in view lead both characters to feel disconnected with each other, resulting them to be unable to understand with each other.

Art finally started to realize his own guilt and struggles after the publication of Maus I. In Maus II, Art started to wear a mouse mask. A reporter asks Art why should younger Germans feel guilt when the Holocaust happened before they were even born, and Art response, “Who am I to say? … I dunno… Maybe EVERYONE must feel guilty. Everyone! FOREVER!” (Maus II, 202). This quote could relate that guilt on a collective level was not a bad thing, most importantly, if it can help in preventing another Holocaust. It is very clear that Art feels guilt and is including himself when he says emphasize on EVERYONE.

Spiegelman questions the idea that if everyone should feel some type of guilt over the holocaust and that it should extend beyond the Germans. Children of the holocaust and of the Nazi Germans share similar guilt. The point of Art wearing a mouse mask reveals that Art was pretending to be one of the Jewish victims of the holocaust, but the reality is that he was never a victim. In this quote Art says, “I can’t believe I’m going …. My father’s ghost still hangs over me” (Maus II, 203). Looking back to the theme of the story where guilt is still being presented. Now that Vladek is dead, Art feels even more guilty for illustrating his dad in a tough way. Art tries to make sense survivors guilt that Vladek feels from being one of the holocaust survivors. Vladek’s channels inner guilt toward himself for being a survival through the Holocaust, and is said by Pavel, “Maybe your father needed … always right that he could always SURVIVE … GUILTY about surviving” (Maus II,204). The survivor’s guilt that Vladek feels is poured out on Art, who is described as the real survivor.

Throughout Maus, the author uses his graphic imagery and visual metaphors to effectively discuss how guilt, despite being an objectively simple concept, has both individual and collective levels in the context of the Holocaust. Spiegelman uses his graphics and text to enforce the understanding that although often appearing negative, guilt is a force that compels us to not only reflect, but also responsibility to others.