Maus Art Spiegelman Guilt

In the novel ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman he explores the theme guilt. Maus is a story of Vladek Spiegelman’s life in the Holocaust. In many different ways the relationship between Vladek and his son Art is one of the main parts in the book. This narrative deals with the feeling guilt. Guilt is associated with the members of their family. The types of simpler guilt can be seen in three different categories. First Art’s feels guilt over the death of his mother Anja. Art also experiences a deep sense of survivor’s guilt even though Art was born in Sweden after the war, his parents were in the Holocaust and this affected him deeply. Art thinks he was not a good son to his father he also struggles with the feeling of guilt about this as well. You discover

in ‘Maus’ that Art goes through a lot of guilt and he was not in the Holocaust.

Art feels a lot of guilt over the death of his mother Anja.

He feels responsible for his mother’s suicide; he believes this because of how he treated his mother at times. The last thing he can remember of his mother was her asking him if he still loves her and he responds with a short blunt answer of “sure ma!” . Even though this guilt is not a major part of this story it is still very important because Art feels similar guilt towards his father who is still alive. He feels like he could of done more for his mum but he had no idea she was not well, now he blames himself. After his mothers suicide he shortly published the comic book. It is clear that Art feels guilt from this just by simply seeing the title ‘Prisoner on The Hell Planet, a case History.’ It becomes apparent with the points previously stated that Art is clearly empathetic and has an overwhelming sense of guilt towards the tragic death of his

mother.

Even though Art was born at the end of World War II, his parents were in the Holocaust and this event affected him deeply. In book II when Art and Francoise (his girlfriend) were driving to the Catskills he reflects on this and opens up to Francoise and stated “Somehow, I wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through! I guess it’s some form of quilt about having had an easier life than they did.” His life had been affected by the spoken events of the Holocaust. It is believed that Vladeks personality and parenting skills were influenced by the events that happened in his life. Art feels as if no matter what he does his father will always believe that nothing will ever be as good or has hard as surviving the Holocaust like he did. Art states, “it’s some kind of quilt having to live an easier life”. The evidence shows that Art also experiences survivor’s guilt even though he was not even alive when the Holocaust happened. Given quotes strongly suggest that Art Spiegelman wants to make it clear to the readers of Art’s feelings towards the topic.

One of the simplest forms of guilt in ‘Maus’ is Art’s guilt about him thinking he was not a good enough son to his father, Vladek.

Right from the first book we are told they do not get along very well. They do not see each other very often and we know this because Vladek says at the start of the book “I haven’t seen Artie in almost two years.” and when they do see each other they seem to argue a lot. Art even says early in the book “we weren’t that close” Art finds it hard to get along with his father because he can not forgive his father and calls him “murderer…” for burning Anja’s diaries so we can see that Art has his issues with his father but at the same time he feels guilt about having these issues against him. With reference to in text proof, general guilt is obvious. It is obvious that Spiegelman is trying to convey these emotions to the

reader.

Spiegelman quickly conveys the strong overwhelming sense of guilt that Art has. Throughout both book I and II, guilt is always a common factor. Judging from the quotes above, Art has had this guilt for a large majority of his life. The book ‘Maus’ is filled with emotive and descriptive language that spiegelman uses to his advantage to sway the readers emotions. It captivates the audience’s attention right from the beginning.