Detailed Analysis of Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale

This assignment provides a comprehensive analysis of Art Spiegelman's graphic memoir, Maus, focusing on its unique representation of the Holocaust. The analysis examines the diverse graphic elements, including animal metaphors (Jews as mice, Germans as cats), photographs, maps, and diagrams, and how they contribute to the narrative's power and impact. It explores the shifting time references between the present and the past, analyzing the changes in Art and other characters across the two volumes and the psychological burden of the first volume's success. The assignment also delves into how Maus represents trauma in both victims during the Holocaust and subsequent generations, as well as the struggle between Art and his father to remember and control the narrative, and the influence of ghostly presences. The analysis highlights the memoir's exploration of memory, identity, and the lasting effects of the Holocaust on individuals and families, offering a nuanced understanding of Spiegelman's narrative techniques and thematic concerns.

Running head: SPIEGELMAN MAUS
SPIEGELMAN MAUS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SPIEGELMAN MAUS
1. Through most of the book, people are represented as animals (Jewish people as mice,
Germans as cats, Poles as pigs, and so on). On a few occasions, there are photographs
inserted, and sometimes there are drawings of photographs. There are maps and
diagrams, as well as drawings of iconic photographs. How does this variety of graphic
elements form and develop from much of the same sort of information or images you
know through the memoirs, diaries, essays, and documentaries in this course?
With a notable character illustration, Spiegelman represents the picture of absurdity of
dividing unity of the people. In order to reach up to all kinds of audiences, the distorted
reality is conveyed through the comics. As observed, the story does not reveal the reality with
accuracy yet the representation feeds the audiences with the concept of holocaust and other
instances depicted through the characters like frog, mice, cats, pigs and many more. The
characters are developed through Spiegelman’s retelling of his father’s memoirs. The
representation of the characters portrayed Germans as cats, Jews as mice and Polish as pigs
and so on (Spiegelman). Through these characters Spiegelman draws out the Jewish
brutalization. The concept is derived from the second volume where “ Mickey Mouse” is
viewed as miserable idea instead of ideal type, provided with a supporting statement that
bacteria carrier cannot be the ideal type in the animal kingdom (Spiegelman). However, it is
evident enough that Spiegelman is parodies the vision of the Nazi that are based on racial
divisions through the idea of Vladek’s racism and his usage of words like “schwartser”, that
is, certain ethnic slurs are used to pour allegations or insinuations about a person of a given
ethnicity (Spiegelman). As the events and illustrations proceed in the story further, the
Germans are viewed with little difference among them (Spiegelman). But the variety among
the Jews and the Poles are predominantly viewed(Spiegelman). For instance, the characters
representing Jewish councils and Jews are witnessed to be associated under compliance with

2SPIEGELMAN MAUS
the occupiers (Spiegelman). Apart from this, Spiegelman reveals the incidents in which Poles
risk themselves to help Jews and further reveals the incident of Kapos who were depiction as
anti-Semitic Poles (Spiegelman). Spiegelman takes the concept of revealing the reality using
metaphors form the films based on Nazi propaganda in which Jews are depicted as the
parasitic worms, vermins(Spiegelman). In the first volume, that is, the original publication,
Spiegelman introduced a self portrait mouse having a human body, he develops the portrayal
of the character with the progression of his story, meaning, in the second volume the
character was found to be evolved in to a man wearing mouse mask (Spiegelman). In Maus,
the characters being mice and cats embraced the human skills regarding acting, reacting and
speaking (Spiegelman). The animal metaphor represents the stratification of the existing
social world. By providing the deeper instances of the stratification, the story delvers the fact
that the depiction is a manufactured illusion, as illustrated in the second volume of Maus
(Spiegelman). However, the animal characters have been characterized on the basis of race,
but on the contrary, the characters are later appeared to be in masks that are tie to their hands
using strings (Spiegelman). Thereby, through the characters, the idea of race appears to be an
artifice, as suggested by Spiegelman. He further suggests that the soul underneath the mask is
significantly same(Spiegelman). Spielgelman further justifies the use of animal imagery as
significant addition in the course of highlighting the method to hold the originality and its
sympathetic notion (Spiegelman). It is established that through the act of drawing the
characters of Jews as mice, Poles as pigs, Nazis as cats and Americans as dogs, Spielgelman
also prevents the meaning to be over determined that usually occurs in human mind and
imagery (Spiegelman).
2. Both Art and his father are constantly shifting in time references and this is
immediately drawn in the text (from Queens or the Catskills in the present moment to
the First World War and Poland in the 1930s to drawing Maus). What changes have

3SPIEGELMAN MAUS
taken place between the first volume and the second for Art and the other characters?
How has the unexpected worldwide success of the first volume been a psychological
burden?
There are variant changes witnessed in both of the volumes. As observed that Maus is
identified as the multitiered metanarrative construct provided with the evidences that are
extracted from the interaction between the son and the father (Spiegelman). The story
identifies a psychological shift in Art as he is exposed to the experiences in Auschwitz
(Spiegelman). The story through is two volumes shapes up the identity and character
representation. However, Spiegelman establishes a balances between the harsh reality yet
interesting to look through with the help of installation of animal metaphor (Spiegelman).
However, the story develops transformation through the narrative work witnessed in Maus as
it bears the implementation of the change as well as the trail of transmission (Spiegelman).
The change is seen as a key to more practical idea of the methods through which trauma is
transferred or channelized generations after generations (Spiegelman). The biographies are
witnessed aa te essential factors that bridges the gaps between the experiences of the first
generation and the second generation. During the treatment of Holocaust, Sielgelman
struggles to construct an identity within the arena of his own family tree, while at the same
time it is seen that debates on ethics are established in representation of Holocaust
(Spiegelman). However, most of the traumatic and difficult aspects were resolved in the
second volume. At the end of the volume, Art gains a deep understanding of his father
through the series of oral intervies, but the loss of Anji’s diaries reveals that he is not able to
explore further deeply with conflicted feelings that were fixed towards her (Spiegelman). In
his representations of the comic, Artie elaborates the overwhelming mix of guilt and anger
that were fixed after his mother’s suicide (Spiegelman). He was aware that friends and

4SPIEGELMAN MAUS
neighbors point Art for being responsible for Anja’s death, and admit that he possibly might
have turned his back on his mother in her upsetting moments (Spiegelman). The moments,
especially, the time when she desperately wanted to feel loved, however he feels that his
mother is the one who has “murdered” him by making his life unacceptable and upside down
or rather ruined as he now is trapped in the suffocating sphere of guilt and resentment
(Spiegelman).
3. How does Maus represent trauma in victims during the Holocaust and decades later
and in the second generation? How does Maus show the differences in desire to
remember and control the narrative in the struggle between Art and his father and the
ghostly presences of Art’s mother and Richieu?
The text through its two parts that is, Maus I: My Father Bleeds History2 and Maus
II: And Here My Troubles Began, reveals the story of Anja and Vladek Spiegelman, who
were the two survivors of Auschwitz through the narration of their son, Art Spielman. Art
records his father’s memories through the sessions of oral interviews (Spiegelman). The story
initiates from Vladek’s life experiences that starts from 1930s Poland till the very end of the
World War II (Spiegelman). The memoir contains the record of Vladek’s marriage with Anja
and her courtship. It reveals the rise in business in the Polish town, moreover, it is observed
that the records of capture of the Polish Army and release by the Nazis are present
(Spiegelman). The memoirs contains Valdek’s plans and strategies to hide along with Anja in
order to remain avoided from being sent to the camps. In addition there are traumatic records
that reveals the experiences in Auschwitz (Spiegelman). More importantly, it is traced that
the transition of the Jews’ position in Poland through the practice of the policies that were
based on the Third Reich;s anti- Semitic grounds (Spiegelman). The narratives provides the
experiences of Vadek’s post Holocaust life spent in America. Maus has been seen as
significant text in the arena o literature specifically based on the trauma poured on the victims

5SPIEGELMAN MAUS
during the Holocaust as well as the effects that poured on the second generation
(Spiegelman). Maus shows how the children like Art gathers a distinct sense of tolerating the
reverberation of unlived traumatic life of Holocaust (Spiegelman). Thereby, tis very instance
is considered to be the legacy, as familiar construct is witnessed in the second generation that
associated with Holocaust (Spiegelman). Through such bearing distinct sense, the second
generation develops the caliber of exploring the events through creative writing and art,
trying to fill, restore and rectify the voids and gaps that has been acting as an agent of
nullification on many victims (Spiegelman). The story Maus, through its records and notion
of dual memory. Art see through the experiences and recalls the effects that are echoed back
to him through his father’s memories (Spiegelman). For example, at the beginning of the
scene, Vladek, happens to provide comfort to his son, when his friends left him. Following
the father remarks his friends to be untrustworthy and cynical (Spiegelman). Thereby, Maus
is seen as a part of the second generation that echoes the effects of passing the stories on to
the next generation (Spiegelman). The influences, the relation and imagines through one’s
memories marks the identity prominently. And such identities are further associated with
traumatic past experiences (Spiegelman).

6SPIEGELMAN MAUS
Work Cited:
Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A survivor's tale. Vol. 2. Pantheon, 1991.