The Use of Animals in Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor’s Tale The Maus series of books tell a very powerful story about one man’s experience in the Holocaust. They do not tell the story in the conventional novel fashion. Instead, the books take on an approach that uses comic windows as a method of conveying the story. One of the most controversial aspects of this method was the use of animals to portray different races of people. The use of animals as human races shows the reader the ideas of the Holocaust a lot more forcefully than simply using humans as the characters. Art Spiegelman decided on a very interesting, and possibly offensive to some, scheme of different animals to use. The first type of animal that appears is the mouse (Maus 1 p. 5). Mice were used to represent the Jewish people during the Holocaust as well as the present day. Polish police were involved in the first arrest of Jewish persons (Maus 1 p. 27). Polish people were represented with pigs. Once the Germans appeared, the scheme of the animals began to make sense (Maus 1 p. 33). Germans were shown by the use of cats. The last animal to appear were the dogs (Maus 2 p. 12). The dogs are Americans, and were always friendly to the Jewish people. The relationship between these animals portray the ideas of the Holocaust very well. Mice are small and scrawny creatures which are usually hunted by Cats. Cats chase mice and attempt to devour them, much like the Germans hunted down the Jews during the mass genocide. Pigs are very greedy and self centered. During the story, the Polish(Pigs) sold out the Jewish people on many occasions (Maus I p. 143). An example is when Vladek and his family were staying at Kawka’s farm. “They may come search here any minute! You’ve got to leave!” In this situation, Kawka was not telling the truth, but only trying to protect herself. Dogs chase cats, which in the book was symbolic because the Americans sympathized with the Jewish people. These are very rudimentary overviews of the animals, but they will serve for the purposes of this essay. In the Maus series, the life of Vladek during the Holocaust was detailed. The animals were used to illustrate a point of view.
The graphic novels Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman possess the power to make the reader understand the pain and suffering that takes place during the Holocaust. Spiegelman uses animals instead of humans in his graphic novels to represent the different races of people. The use of visual mediums in Art Spiegelman’s Maus enhances the reading of the narrative. The graphics throughout the novel help the reader fully understand everything that is happening.
It shows this through its comic book style drawings on a topic that is difficult to explain. With the illustration throughout the story it shows the true meaning of a picture is worth a thousand words. Compared to any other type of Holocaust book it would be hard for a person who did not go through the Holocaust to understand what was taking place during that time. Most books are just written, no images. It is just a plain book with many descriptions. Unlike those "Maus" took on another type of perception. Humans have the ability to understand and reason things but with all of that it is hard to understand the extent of the Holocaust through just words. So Art decided to included drawings in a comic book form to allow readers to understand what was going on without having to imagine it. His book allowed its readers to see what was taking place while reading it. That is what the main difference is compared to other narratives. Also, his use of symbolism allowed the reading to understand what was going on without drawings of humans but animals. An example of this was the Nazis being represented by cats and the Jews represented as mice. In reality we know that the cat always tries to kill the mouse. During that time Jews were the pest to societies and the Nazis had to fix that. Also, with this in reality it is normal for a cat
During the Nazi reign, Jewish people along with other groups were persecuted and used as scapegoats to the German people. The Nazi’s and German people gathered up Jewish people and massacred about 6 million people in the idea that they were the vermin of Germany that was holding them down. Jew’s were robbed of everything they had and sent off to concentration camps where they were beaten, starved, and murdered. The novel Maus I: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman illustrates this by giving us a detailed encounter of the holocaust through the authors’ father’s experience. Spiegelman illustrates the Jews as mice because it symbolizes how the Jews were run off and were killed and hunted like vermin. The Germans were illustrated as cats because they were the “hunter”. The graphic novel Maus I: My Father Bleeds History gives you a personal view of the Holocaust and the horrific Nazi reign through guilt, survival and, luck.
In the years after the Holocaust the survivors from the concentration camps tried to cope with the horrors of the camps and what they went through and their children tried to understand not only what happened to their parents. In the story of Maus, these horrors are written down by the son of a Holocaust survivor, Vladek. Maus is not only a story of the horrors of the concentration camps, but of a son, Artie, working through his issues with his father, Vladek. These issues are shown from beginning to end and in many instances show the complexity of the father-son relationship that was affected from the Holocaust. Maus not only shows these matters of contentions, but that the Holocaust survivors constantly put their children’s experiences to unreasonable standards of the parent’s Holocaust experiences.
In Art Spiegelman’s comic series, MAUS, each race in the storyline is analogously depicted as a different animal. This essay will explore the various benefits, drawbacks and their counteractions, that are confounded with author’s choice of this illustration. It can be argued that choosing animals to represent humans, in an event as complex as the Shoah, dehumanizes victims even more. Humans conventionally see species of animals as collective entities rather than individual beings. Thus, by representing all the Jewish people as one type of animal, the reader might unconsciously generalize all the victims’ sufferings and discourses into one coherent image, in order to make sense of things. On the other hand, depicting each race as a certain animal
Maus has aspects to it that other books about the Holocaust do not include. The strategies Spiegelman used, for example, depictions of nationalities through animals. The woman animals are: mice for Jews, and cats...
In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the audience is led through a very emotional story of a Holocaust survivor’s life and the present day consequences that the event has placed on his relationship with the author, who is his son, and his wife. Throughout this novel, the audience constantly is reminded of how horrific the Holocaust was to the Jewish people. Nevertheless, the novel finds very effective ways to insert forms of humor in the inner story and outer story of Maus. Although the Holocaust has a heart wrenching effect on the novel as a whole, the effective use of humor allows for the story to become slightly less severe and a more tolerable read.
Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a novel about the Vladek and his experience as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. It narrates the reality of the Holocaust wherein millions and millions of Jews were systematically killed by the Nazi regime. One of the themes in the story is racism which is evident in the employment of animal characters and its relationship with one another.
By means of comic illustration and parody, Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel about the lives of his parents, Vladek and Anja, before and during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II delves into the emotional struggle he faced as a result of his father’s failure to recover from the trauma he suffered during the Holocaust. In the novel, Vladek’s inability to cope with the horrors he faced while imprisoned, along with his wife’s tragic death, causes him to become emotionally detached from his son, Art. Consequently, Vladek hinders Art’s emotional growth. However, Art overcomes the emotional trauma his father instilled in him through his writing.
Art Spiegelman's Maus II is a book that tells more than the story of one family's struggle to live thought the Holocaust. It gives us a look into the psyche of a survivor's child and how the Holocaust affected him and many other generations of people who were never there at all. Maus II gives the reader a peek into the psyche of Art Spiegelman and the affects of having two parents that survived the Holocaust had on him. Spiegelman demonstrates the affects of being a survivor's child in many ways throughout the book. Examining some of these will give us a better understanding of what it was like to be a part of the Holocaust.
Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus unfolds the story about his father Vladek Spiegleman, and his life during the WWII. Since Vladek and Art are both the narrators of the story, the story not only focuses on Vladek's survival, but also the writing process and the organization of the book itself. Through these two narrators, the book explores various themes such as identity, perspective, survival and guilt. More specifically, Maus suggests that surviving an atrocity results in survivor’s guilt, which wrecks one’s everyday life and their relationships with those around them. It accomplishes this through symbolism and through characterization of Vladek and Anja.
“I'm not talking about YOUR book now, but look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What's the point? People haven't changed... Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust.” These words were spoken by author Art Spielgelman. Many books have been written about the Holocaust; however, only one book comically describes the non-superficial characteristics of it. Art Spiegelman authors a graphic novel titled Maus, a book surrounding the life a Jewish man living in Poland, named Vladek. His son, Art Spielgelman, was primarily focused on writing a book based on his father’s experiences during the Holocaust. While this was his main focus, his book includes unique personal experiences, those of which are not commonly described in other Holocaust books. Art’s book includes the troubles his mother, Anja, and his father, Vladek, conquered during their marriage and with their family; also, how his parents tried to avoid their children being victimized through the troubles. The book includes other main characters, such as: Richieu Spiegelman, Vladek first son; Mala Spiegelman, Vladek second wife; and Françoise, Art’s French wife. Being that this is a graphic novel, it expresses the most significant background of the story. The most significant aspect about the book is how the characters are dehumanized as animals. The Jewish people were portrayed as mice, the Polish as pigs, the Germans (Nazis in particular) as cats, and Americans as dogs. There are many possible reasons why Spiegelman uses animals instead of humans. Spiegelman uses cats, dogs, and mice to express visual interests in relative relationships and common stereotypes among Jews, Germans, and Americans.
The Holocaust is one of the most horrific and gruesome events in world history. It took a great toll on millions of lives in one way or another. One person in particular is Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, consists of two main narratives. One narrative occurs during World War II in Poland, and the other begins in the late 1970s in New York. In relation to each other these two narratives portray the past and present.Throughout the novel, we often see Art Spiegelman questioning why his father acts the way he does. Although the war is over, the events of the Holocaust continue to influence the life of Vladek. Why do we allow the past to effect the present? Vladek's personality is largely influenced by his Holocaust experience. In Maus I and II, Vladek was stubborn, selfish, and cheap because of his experiences in the Holocaust.
What if you were a holocaust survivor and asked to describe your catastrophic experience? What part of the event would you begin with, the struggle, the death of innocent Jews, or the cruel witnessed? When survivors are questioned about their experience they shiver from head to toe, recalling what they have been through. Therefore, they use substitutes such as books and diaries to expose these catastrophic events internationally. Books such as Maus, A survivor’s tale by Art Spiegelman, and Anne Frank by Ann Kramer. Spiegelman presents Maus in a comical format; he integrated the significance of Holocaust while maintaining the comic frame structure format, whereas comic books are theoretically supposed to be entertaining. Also, Maus uses a brilliant technique of integrating real life people as animal figures in the book. Individually, both stories involve conflicts among relationships with parents. Furthermore, Maus jumps back and forth in time. Although, Anne Frank by Ann Kramer, uses a completely different technique. Comparatively, both the books have a lot in common, but each book has their own distinctive alterations.
All of the characters in Animal farm have counterparts in real life. This book was based on the Russian Revolution, and all the important populace of the revolution are symbolized. Some of the animals represent individuals in the Russian Revolution, and some types of animals represent different types of Russian citizens. The book carries out much like the actual revolution. It starts out with hopes of an empire where all are equal and the unfair unjust leader is thrown out. Then it moves on to where some individuals begin to take more power than is rightfully theirs. At the end the rulers have completely taken over and the kingdom is as it was under the original rulers. I will compare the animals from top of the social class to the bottom. At the top were the pigs. Each pig represented someone different in the revolution. Old Major is compared to Lenin. He was an ideologist who dreamed up a wonderful government where all the animals were equal and the humans, or the czars, were pushed out. Unfortunately his dream would never materialize. Then we are left with his predecessors. The first is Snowball. Snowball believed one hundred percent in Old Majors ideals. He wanted all the things Old Major wanted, such as the welfare of the animals. In the Russian Revolution his counterpart would be Trotsky. Trotsky believed and wanted the same things as Lenin, and wanted to continue what Lenin had started. Then comes Napoleon. Napoleon was selfish and greedy. He did not want to share the power or the decision making with any other individual. This was the same for Stalin. At first Napoleon and Snowball shared the decision making and had debates about what course of action they would take. This worked for awhile. Then Napoleon grew weary of long debates, and he thought he could make the decision by himself. He then forced Snowball out of the farm and started to spread lies about Snowball to get the entire farm against him. Stalin did the same thing against Trotsky and forced Trotsky into hiding into Mexico, where he was eventually assassinated. Both Stalin and Napoleon ruined any hopes of equal and fare government and instead set up dictatorships. Then comes the final important pig, Squealer. Squealer did not make the decisions in the government but acted more like the controlled media as in the Russian government.