Metaphors In Maus

Maus tells a story of Spiegelman’s, Vladek, and his experience as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus gives us a detailed look at the ways Jews were persecuted in German-occupied territories during World War II. The Jews were seen as inferior, disposable and deprived of the most basic human rights. Instead of drawing the characters as human, Art Spiegelman, in his graphic novel Maus, chooses to merge the different identities and draw each character through a definitive scope of animals: Mice were used to represent the Jewish people, cats to represent the Germans, pigs to represent the people of Poland and dogs to represent Americans. He uses metaphors which are figures of speech that is used to make a comparison between two things that aren't alike but do have something in common, in this instance animals. Mr. Spigelman strategically chose the animal characters and had a stereotypical relation to the character the animals depicted in the story. Mr. Spiegelman convincingly argues that he was using “Hitler’s pejorative attitudes against themselves,” and that using animals “allowed me to approach otherwise unsayable things” (Gardner 2011, p 2). There are many times throughout the text

wherein it is entirely obvious that the characters are humans wearing masks. This in turn depicts that the use of these animal characters were just to cover up the identities of the true characters and suggest that that there is a deeper meaning to the metaphor. The animal metaphors that were used in Maus eliminates some of the negative connotation associated with the Holocaust making it easier to relate. Chaney also believed,“ The animal mask acords the fabulist a valuable measure of metaphorical distance is a notice that required neither difficult theories or mimesis nor elaborate critiques of the human for early twentieth-century critics and reader to comprehend” ( 2011 p. 132). Spigelman used human stereotypes to strategically choose the animal characters that most closely resemble the actual characters in the Holocaust.
The Jews were represented by Mice in the story. Spiegelman's use of mice to portray the Jews as the way the Nazis saw them, considering them vermin. Spiegelman attempts to use the stereotypes that some people believed were true. Jews which were played by mice were hunted and killed by the Germans which were cats in the story. The Nazi government infiltrated every aspect of their lives, controlling their movements, taking their wealth and property. In the story Vladek's stepfather asked, “Don’t you know? ALL Jewish businesses have been taken over by ‘Aryan managers’…” During that time Jews were not allowed to be free and they were defenseless against the Germans. The Germans cats treated the Jewish mice poorly, they were hunted and once caught either killed or deported. According to the story, “She was taken with everybody else who was going to be deported to four apartment houses that were emptied to make a sort of prison….They put thousands of people there … it was so crowded that some of them actually suffocated … no food … no toilets. It was terrible.” In representing the Jews as mice, Spiegelman used a metaphor that had already been established in the Mickey Mouse cartoons. It is similar in the rodent appearance but very different in context.
Different animal characters play various other cultural stereotypes. The Germans are cats, predators that prey on the Jewish mice. The German in the story were more favourable than the other animal characters because during that time, if you were a Jew or even Polish the Germans were in control. The relationship between the Germans and the Jews are one of predator and prey, which displayed the tone of the Holocaust but used inhuman characters to try and justify the inhuman acts. The cat metaphor signifies power and hostility, the cats don't just kill the mice; they capture them, play with them, and then kill them. Naturally, cats and mice are enemies. Mice lack reasoning skills which in the story allows the German cats to systematically killing almost all the Jewish mice. The way the German cats were drawn also played a role in painting an image of the Germans. The cats were drawn as big and healthy animals while the mice were all small with narrow features. This shows that the German cats were living and eating well while the Jewish mice were starved and had to sneak for food. The cat and mouse characters were strategically chosen because, in real live a mouse is a pry for a cat. Using this metaphor eased the Holocaust experience because naturally the cat and mouse relationship is well known. The depiction of Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats is self-explanatory, the other animals in the story also played a role in continuing the animal metaphor connection.
The polish people were characterized as pigs, they were not seen as sympathetic and cute but rather bad tempered, greedy, frightened or unwilling to help for the most part . In the story, the Polish pigs were not treated as bad as the Jewish mice. They were one step above them, however the German cats still mistreated them. The Polish pigs help to hide some of Jewish Jew mice and prevented them from being killed, however they always demanded money and when the mice monies ran out the pigs would report them to the German cats. Throughout the story, the pigs were seen as frightened especially if they were hiding Jewish mice in their home. During the story, the Polish(Pigs) sold out the Jewish people on many occasions. 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. She was afraid if she was caught harboring Jews she may be killed as well. Spiegelman states, in MetaMaus (2011) “And considering the bad relations between Poles and Jews for the last hundred years in Poland, it seemed right to use a non-Kosher animal” to portray Poles”(p. 125). The pig metaphor was a distasteful one, however Spiegelman got his point across in portraying them as mean, greedy and nonchalant to some extent.
The character that was shown as saviours or liberators were the American soldiers characterized as dogs in Maus.

The American dogs saved the Jewish mice from the German cats. They were depicted as friendly and helpful, as soon and the Jewish mice saw them they knew that the war was over. Vladek speaks to an American, depicted as a dog who has come to Liberate him. “This house will be apart of our base camp but i guess you boys can stay the joint clean and make our beds”. The metaphorical role of the dogs being Americans and nice implies that they were the ones who had sympathy on the Jews and saved them from the Germans. Americans are seen as people above the others and are treated as saviors, that is where Spiegelman’s ideas for dogs fits the character it

displays.
While the Holocaust is one of the most horrible episodes of history, it is not one that could or should be forgotten. Spiegelman did an excellent job on making it child friendly by using animal characters, which is a good way to teach children about a sensitive topic. Animals are often associated with children books Spiegelman uses animals to sensitize the horrible Holocaust experience. However, the simplicity of the language and images should not limit the story it is still a true story and one of importance. According to Stayb, “Maus needs to be understood not only as a comic book, but also as an oral narrative, one that struggles to present, in pictures and writing, spoken memories” (1995 p.34). The way the characters were drawn also left an impact on the readers, according to Ravelo, “The choice of animals which have been drawn with a few strokes, and the absence of morbid drawings might prevent the reader from experiencing anger, hatred, or compassion” ( 2013 p. 21). There is a connection between the animal characters Spiegelman chose in Maus. The Jewish mice were chased away by German cats, which in the end were chased away by American dogs, it a direct link between those characters.