WEEK 7: MAUS

For this week’s reading, I had the pleasure of reading one of Art Spiegelman’s greatest works, Maus. To be honest, I had already read this graphic novel last year in the summer, but I definitely did not mind going through it once more. This book really changed my perspective on the Holocaust. The way that Spiegelman told his father’s (and his own) story was so innovative and every page was masterfully composed. You can really tell how much thought process went into the layout of the spreads and the complexity of the storytelling through an interview. Maus is such an iconic novel not only because of the style and techniques used, but also the touchy subject matter and how Spiegelman chose to interpret it.

Obviously, the choice of using cats and mice was very effective. Not only was it easier to draw, but it helped emphasize his view of how the Holocaust was. Being held up in rotten camps and having to group together in unsanitary conditions is usually how people see rats and mice. The idea of other animals representing different cultures was very interesting as well. It seemed like Spiegelman was making a strong statement with these analogies, like how the Polish are depicted as pigs. I loved that he chose dogs for Americans, because it just made so much sense but I wouldn’t have thought of it myself. It really tied in the whole “cats chase mice, and dogs chase cats” mentality in such a simple way.  I feel like a child could easily understand the Holocaust by looking at it in this way, though I would never recommend this book to a child due to the mature themes. Spiegelman does a great job of keeping the novel fairly clean and not too unsettling (which is a hard task since he is dealing with the Holocaust), but overall it has a very dark tone that would go way over a child’s head.

What I want to discuss the most about Maus is Spiegelman’s use of symbolism and imagery to further convey a mood or the tone of a scene. There is so much visual design on each page and panel that really supports the heavy tone of the story. There were a few panels that really stood out to me, like on page 32 where Vladek and the other passengers see the swastika for the first time. That alone is a huge moment to convey, and I think that Spiegelman did a solid job on presenting this to his audience. He drew the swastika at the very top of the frame to indicate its power/ influence over the mice and the town. Having the mice clustered at the bottom of the panel with a light hatching blends them more into the background, leaving most of the reader's focus on the flag. Also seeing them huddled inside the small train shows how they are trapped in from the outside world that is slowly being conquered by the Nazis. It’s like they’re aware of how their lives are about to drastically change for the worse.

Overall, I believe this novel to be a true testament to the memories of Holocaust survivors. What separates Maus from other Holocaust stories is not only the fact that it is personalized towards his father’s tale, but also the author’s own experience. I feel like people don’t tend to think about the aftermath of the Holocaust and what it does to those who come in the next generation. Spiegelman expresses this thought in an interesting way on page 176, where he says, “I somehow wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through!… I guess it’s some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did” to his wife. This is probably Spiegelman’s opinion on how the effects of the Holocaust are everlasting. Though he never lived through it and only had stories passed down on him, he feels the guilt of being in the next generation even though it’s completely out of his control. This shows how the Holocaust is not just something of the past— it continues to haunt those who have endured it as well as their descendants. It is a powerful sentiment that is said while we see them driving on the freeway with other cars, which represents the modern times. Though Spiegelman lives in the present, he is often stopped by his parents’ past. Much like bustling city-life traffic, his life is a constant stop-and-go motion because of the Holocaust and its effect on his family.