Analyzing Graphic Fiction: Maus

Running Head: ANALYZING GRAPHIC FICTION: MAUS
Name of University
An analysis in graphic fiction
Maus: an interpretation
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ANALYZING GRAPHIC FICTION: MAUS
The trope of graphic novels enable the author to portray a grim reality without the
compulsion of visual violence. The genre effortlessly slips into fictional narratives despite
dealing with issues connoting social, religious and political undertones. Speaking of socio-
political contexts, Spiegelam’s Maud is an unflinchingly honest depiction of the Holocaust,
which takes the readers into the very depths of the world’s largest account of mass carnage,
destabilizing the accepted notions of human life and relationships. (Nashti 8). The novel can be
best evaluated by the learnings from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics as per the
emphasis on dichotomy between stylization and naturalism exemplified in the work. (Bongco).
The book is authored by the infamous American cartoonist Art Spiegelman and appeared
in issues of the Raw magazine from December 1980 to 1991 mid-year. (Hancock 2014) The
author had to struggle with getting a book edition published before Pantheon Books finally
agreed to publish the first six chapters after a review on New York Times. The international
publication of the work is accredited to Penguin Books. Maus is narrated as a biographical
journal of the writer’s father Vladek Spiegalman, a Holocaust survivor who recounts the horrors
of his past life at the concentration camp, while the narrative shifts back and forth between
present day in New York and Nazi invaded Poland. The now estranged Art comes to visit his
father requesting him to recount his Holocaust experiences. Vladek goes back to the time when
he married Anja and moved to Sosnoweic, where he was later imprisoned and made to work as
one of the war’s prisoners under Nazi foray. However, he manages to cross the borders after his
release and reunite with his family. The family is separated again in 1943 when the Jews of
Sosnoweic are moved to Srodula. Vladek and Anja (his newly married wife) go into hiding but
fall prey to a smuggling trap and are taken to Auschwitz. At this juncture of the novel, the

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ANALYZING GRAPHIC FICTION: MAUS
narrative shifts to present time with Art asking for his mother’s diaries where she had recorded
her camp experiences. Vladek admits to burning them after her suicide, which infuriates Art who
calls him a ‘murderer’. The story takes a leap to 1986 as the book finds enormous success and
Art suffers writer’s block, although the narrative stays put with Vladek’s hardships and his
descriptions of the brutalities at camps. The novel closes with the image of Anja and Vladek’s
tombstone on a note of desolation and despondency.
The novel is equally remarkable in terms of characterization if the psyche of the central
protagonists are delved into. Vladek’s survival instincts compel him from being a resourceful
and ambitious businessperson to an obnoxious, egocentric and anal-retentive hyper-perfectionist.
More interestingly, his transformation has parallels with Joseph Cambell’s idea of The Hero’s
Journey. Pertaining to this model, the hero sets off in the ordinary world before plunging into the
special world and relapses into the ordinary world again, crossing thresholds, passing ordeals and
resurrecting to order in the process. Vladek’s flaccid response to threat and imminent danger in
the beginning (his first imprisonment after moving to Sosnoweic) is indicative of his refusal to
act. (Kolar and Stanistove 38). However, he demonstrates strength of character and will when
faced with adversaries during his fugitive days (he builds bunks with barbed fences to hide
runaway Jews and has dealings with smugglers for escaping captivity) . His descent into the
‘innermost cave’ and consequent ordeals both inside and outside the prison cells meet the seven
stages criteria of Campbell’s model. (Dan). The only exception to the idea is that although
Vladek is resurrected to the ordinary world, he does not do so with hope (elixir). The book
explores two binaries in the feminine gender through the character sketches of Anja and Mala.
Anja is everything benign and exemplary associated with femininity, although she is not
emotionally stable enough to survive the turmoil of war and familial mishaps as evident in her