The Holocaust was a deeply saddening time for people all around the world, a time were jewish people faced discrimination and prejudice because of their race. The graphic novel “Maus” written by Art Spiegelman depicts his father Vladek’s life during the holocaust and how the troubling events of this horrific part of history changed his life forever. Artie can not seem to truly understand what his father went through and the ever lasting effects it had on him. As time passed his father still hasn’t recovered from the torture he went through and the memoirs are still vivid in his mind. As for Artie’s mother Anja, the effects of the Holocaust were too much for her and she eventually took her own life. The prejudice and discrimination Artie’s …show more content…
parents faced during the Holocaust has significantly contributed to the struggles Artie and Vladek have had in their father son relationship. Due to the suffering Vladek went through during the Holocaust it has caused him to not waste a single thing, he is essentially a hoarder. Artie doesn’t understand why he keeps everything, which in turn has resulted in several arguments between the two. During a dinner, Vladek was getting frustrated with Artie because he had not eaten very much. This made Artie recall how as a child Vladek would save the food for days until Artie would eat it. “Yes! So it has to be. Always you must eat what is on your plate” (Spiegelman, 45) Vladek replied. Artie doesn’t know why his father is like this and gets very irked with his fathers behavior, if he had it his way he would just through out the food without thinking. Vladek’s reasoning is that he doesn’t want his son to go what he went through during the Holocaust, as he would go days without eating and he would be starved. No father wants their child to suffer and because Vladek has, he enforces very strict rules such as you must eat everything, which leads to a lot of fights. At another point in the novel, Vladek and Artie got into a argument when Vladek picked up a piece of wire off the ground to keep. Artie exclaimed, “You always pick up trash can’t you just buy a wire” (118). Artie doesn’t understand his fathers reasoning to pick up the wire because he see the wire as “trash”. To Vladek however he sees the wire as useful. During the Holocaust Vladek could not buy certain things so he would find multiple uses for one item, and even though the Holocaust is over he is left with a compulsion to find uses for everything. After the Holocaust Vladek is left with a desire to hoard many items that most people would throw out, which causes many disagreements and struggles in the relationship between him and Artie. Artie’s and Vladek’s relationship troubles continue whenever Artie does or says something that brings back vivid memories from Vladeks past as a prisoner and Vladek reacts in a way that Artie doesn’t fathom.
As a young child Artie had fallen and his friends just left him there. He was visibly upset and when he came back home and explained what had happened Vladek’s reply was, “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them in a room together with no food for a week… then you could see what it is, friends!... ”(6). You would expect a father of a younger child to be more comforting but as a result of the Holocaust Vladek has actually been without food for a week and has had people he thought he could trust betray him. Artie has not had the same experiences as his father and Vladek says things that he doesn’t understand. At another point Artie and Vladek were in a argument over diares of Artie’s mother from the war. “These papers had too many memories. So I burned them”(106). Vladek told him. Artie is furious with his fathers actions because he just doesn’t see that all of the memories from the war and his deceased wife are too much to handle and this causes many fights between them. Vladek has a very difficult time dealing with past memories from the Holocaust and Artie doesn’t realize how much it is affecting Vladek which is negatively affecting their
relationship. The troubles in the bond between Artie and Vladek were strongly affected when Anja, Vladeks wife, whom he went through all the pain of the Holocaust with committed suicide. In a comic Artie wrote about the suicide, he had himself sitting in a jail cell and saying, “Well Mom, if you’re listening...Congratulations!... You’ve committed the perfect crime. You put me here… shorted all my circuits… cut my nerve endings… and crossed my wires! You murdered me, Mommy, and left me here to take the rap ”(105). Before the death Artie was going through a rough patch and many people his parents included disapproved of his decision to write comics and do something different. These same people thought Artie caused the suicide and he felt like his mom had just left him there alone with all the people pointing the fingers at him. Vladek was at a loss and problems in their relationship had already begun so Artie really felt as if he had no one. At one point Vladek was explaining about to Artie how the comic brought back so many memories of Anja. “...Of course I’m thinking always about her anyway”(106) Vladek commented. Artie may realize that his father misses Anja but he doesn’t understand how much. Vladek and Anja survived the Holocaust together and went through the most terrible things and for him to lose someone whom he went through the Holocaust with is tragic and Artie just doesn’t get the effects of her death on his father. Anja’s suicide has played a huge role in the struggles that Artie and Vladek continue to have in there relationship. All of the prejudice and discrimination that Vladek faced during the Holocaust has not only affect him but it has strongly contributed to the relationship troubles that he and his son Artie are having. Artie was able to share how the Holocaust changed him and his father in a graphic novel of his father's memoirs of the experiences he went through during the war . Thousands of innocent jewish people died and were tortured during the Holocaust which truly was a horrendous time of human history.
During 1925, Mein Kampf was published by the Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler. In this autobiography, where Nazi racist ideas originated, he depicted his struggle with the Jews in Germany. These ideas sparked World War 2 and the Genocide of the Jews. The tragedy of the Holocaust inspired authors, such as Art Spiegelman who produced a Graphic novel, where both the text and images helped him convey his own ideas and messages. In fact, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus is an effective medium for telling a Holocaust narrative and specifically his father’s story of survival. Through this medium, he is able to captivate the readers while providing interesting insight into the tragedy of the Holocaust by using the symbols of animals, the contrast between realism and cartoon imagery and the various basic elements of a graphic novel.
In The Complete Maus, by Art Spiegelman, a son of the Holocaust survivor, Art Spiegelman, learns the story of his father, Vladek Spiegelman. Art Spiegelman learns the causes of why his father acts the way he does and the reason for the eccentric nature he has. Although Vladek Spiegelman physically survives the Holocaust, his actions show that he is psychologically affected by his experience in the camps.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Artie even becomes concerned that he is painting Vladek as a stereotypical Jew, yet he defends his representation of Vladek by saying “I mean, I’m just trying to portray my father accurately!” (134). He makes a similar statement on page 25 when he tells Vladek, “I want to tell your story, the way it really happened”. In other words, Artie is intensely interested in portraying things as accurately as he can, “warts and all.” And this even includes Vladek’s ugly traits, especially his racism. Vladek’s other negative traits have their own backgrounds too. Mala makes many comments stating that Vladek has so much money saved up, but refuses to spend it. This can be traced back to the time at the beginning of the Holocaust, when Art’s store was robbed, and then all of his possessions were taken from
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’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.
Being uncertain, all of the previous mentions of the Holocaust become crushed. Joshua Brown says, “‘Unknowableness’ is the void separating the two generations, and the awareness of the limitations of understanding, of how remembering and telling captures and, yet, fails to capture the experience of the past, permeates Maus” (8). The novel Maus, in other words, tells the storyline that places out its own defects and the unavoidable faults of any retold story. The novel even shows that Vladek’s word should be questioned. At the start of the book, Vladek tells stories about this personal relationships. After he tells Art about the trails of his marriage with Anja, he looks at Art, and states, “I don’t think you should write this in your book” (23). Because of this, it is noticed that Vladek is highly concerned about what Art will turn his story into, making it unable to know who we should trust. Nothing about this novel was set in stone. Everything we learned, is called into question. The certainties become pressing questions. Because of this, we are on our own, and do not know where we are at. Familiar roads, and landmarks disappeared, and all we have is the road and
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.
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.
The books Maus I and Maus II, written by Art Spiegelman over a thirteen-year period from 1978-1991, are books that on the surface are written about the Holocaust. The books specifically relate to the author’s father’s experiences pre and post-war as well as his experiences in Auschwitz. The book also explores the author’s very complex relationship between himself and his father, and how the Holocaust further complicates this relationship. On a deeper level the book also dances around the idea of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. The two books are presented in a very interesting way; they are shown in comic form, which provides the ability for Spiegelman to incorporate numerous ideas and complexities to his work.
In Maus, Art Spiegelman does not make any apologies about what he includes or leaves out from his story. Maus is not meant to be a story that encompasses World War II or the Holocaust, but rather, a story about the life of his father, Vladek Spiegelman:
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.