Art Spiegelman, the son of Wladyslaw (Vladek) and Andzia (Anja) Spiegelman, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus. Spiegelman was born on February 15, 1948 in Stockholm, Sweden and grew up in Queens, New York where he soon comes to study art and philosophy. Spiegelman decides to move to San Francisco to pursue a career in being a comics artist. In 1978, Spiegelman begins to interview his father about his life during the war in Poland and Germany for the comic that ends up being Maus.
The first chapter of Maus was seen in a comics magazine titled Raw that Art Spiegelman co-edited with his wife Francoise in December of 1980 and with every issue of that magazine after the first, a new chapter came out making the publication from 1980 to 1991. Eventually, Pantheon Books, a publishing company, takes notice of a review made by New York Times and publishes the first six chapters as the first book: Maus: A Survivors Tale. Maus is about a man named Art Spiegelman talking to his father about his survival during the Holocaust. The graphic novel describes how Vladek Spiegelman meets his wife and mother of Art, Anja, and grows into a wealthy life before all of that is taken by the Nazis.
The story switches in and out of the past, some scenes being Vladek and Art speaking about things currently going on and then picking up right where he left off in his memories about his gruesome past during the execution of Jews in Germany and Poland. Eventually, Art becomes intrigued by his mother’s view of everything that went down and repeatedly asks his father throughout the story for her journals to include her side and perspective of what happened, to which his father responds that he doesn’t know. In the end, Vladek tells Art that he destroyed Anja’s journals out of pure hysteria during his grieving period of her death and it leaves off with the cliffhanger of Art calling his father a murderer. The main use of symbolism that stands out to the reader would be the use of cat and mouse in the story.
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The German Nazis would be illustrated as the cat who would hunt the mice which in this case would be anyone Jewish. To add, Poles are represented as pigs in the story often seen as people doing things for Jews with an incentive. As an example, there is a part in the book where Vladek was short of money to give to a Polish woman who was hiding them in her home and suddenly she “forgot” to get bread, Vladek continues to speak about how she never forgot to get bread.
As well as when Vladek speaks with the vodka drinking Polish men to continue to hide them out and help them escape to Hungary only for them to turn them over to the Germans. The relationship between Art and his father starts out very comfortable. In the beginning of the story, they have a nicely flowing conversation about Art wanting to interview his father about his time during the Holocaust. But as the reading continues, some may start to notice that Art only seems to care about the past and what his father went through rather what he is currently going through.
The first pop up with this kind of behavior is on page 39 when Vladek drops his prescriptions trying to count them and begins to talk about his cataracts. He’s describing what’s going on and Art throws in a casual “Uh-huh.” He doesn’t say anything else as his father continues to ramble on about the operations that he received Gates 2 on his left eye soon enough responding with another nonchalant comment “Uh-huh you told me about that.” making that his only dialogue up until the point where his father ends the conversation in need to count his pills. Art soon after makes no move to help him, instead opting to say, “Okay good idea…my hand is sore from writing all this down.”
Another clear tell about their relationship not being at its best is Art’s clear lack of wanting anything to do with him or his life outside of the story that needs to be told. When Mala, Vladek’s wife, and Vladek are going through the motions Art doesn’t respond or he even goes to the length of changing the subject! Mala is ranting about Vladek and speaks about how she feels trapped meanwhile Art says, “I’m gonna get some juice. Want some?” soon after sliding more “Uh-huh” type of responses to her while she continues on. Finally, just to add to his obvious disconnect with his father, he claims that he would “rather feel guilty” than to help his father out with the broken drain pipe.
The contradiction between the subject itself and the way that it was executed is very apparent. People wouldn’t expect a reality with this much weight and heavy emotional ties to be drawn out as a comic but a chapter book with beautiful descriptive words to tell his father’s story. It bleeds history because it’s raw and unfiltered. Showing his father’s true disgust and emotion through all of his words. The novel is dialogue and nothing short of factual. There, in no point of the story, was Art’s own opinion on how things happened or how he felt things should’ve happened. The part in the book where the drawing style changes entirely is when Art’s comic Prisoner on the Hell Planet is inserted on pages 100-103.
It’s a comic about his mother’s death including how is father handled it, his feelings toward it, and other people’s reactions to the whole thing. It’s different because it’s not represented as animals and it seems to be darker than the rest of the book. It’s unique in those ways because it’s supposed to represent the heaviness of the entire situation. Art is drawn in a prisoner’s outfit and it helps the reader come to the conclusion that he felt trapped in the situation at hand. Not only were his father’s feelings draining but so were everyone else’s opinions on the matter. He’s using his guilt as the symbol for the prison he’s being held in. There are more advantages than disadvantages in telling the story Maus in comic book form. It allows the reader to see how haunting the entire experience is through emotion and symbolism in the drawings that were in the book. It makes things seem more real and gives things life (even if they are only illustrations).
It may open the eyes of people more than simply reading about it in a book where there are no visual representations. It can also attract a younger crowd to read it and learn about someone’s life during that period of time rather going on and on in a chapter book that would take time to build. The illustrations help switch the stories from the memories of Vladek to the real time conversations and situations going on with little to no confusion. A disadvantage that some see may be the misrepresentation of certain groups of people such as the Polish. There are arguments that the Polish being represented as pigs is offensive and leads the younger group of children being taught with this book to make offensive jokes and comments towards other kids of Polish decent or background.
