Mouse And Enviroment In The Holocaust: Winning The Game Of Life In Maus

Mouse vs. Enviroment “Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire" (Holocaust Encyclopedia). During the 1930’s the Nazi Regimen began, while that period of six years happened, by mostly burning them and putting them in gas chambers, over 72 million people were killed. Mostly society will talk about the Nazi’s going after the Jews and executing them but they weren’t the only ones put through the torture, Hitler targeted anyone who was not normal through his eyes such as, the Gypsies, mentally and physically disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, etc. An unknown writer says, “The sacrifices, and offenses placed upon those who survived took something away from them, and although they survived, winning the game of life

In the book, Vladek had a leak in his roof and asked his son to fix it and when he told him to just hire a plumber he replied with, “You and Mala! You both think money grows on bushes. I’ll fixit myself!”(Spiegleman73). Vladek would much rather utilize his son for the free labor than have to pay out of his own pocket for somebody else to do it. Artie walks into the garage and finds his dad, he asks what he’s doing out there and he tells him, “It’s always something here I must do, I’m putting now away my old nails- The long ones separate from the short ones” (Spiegleman98). Vladek wants to avoid buying new nails, so he uses ones that have been previously made use of or some he had discovered around different places. Towards the very back of the graphic novel, Artie evens points out his dad’s hoarding of items he does not need, “Christ! You save tons of worthless shit, and you…”(Spiegleman159). Vladek burnt all the books that Anja wrote about their experiences in the Holocaust and his son got mad and pointed out that he saves every little thing he finds but then gets rid of one of the most important. As you can see, the main character’s experience in WW2 influenced him to be the average stereotypical Jew he is years after the tragic period of time, he is cheap, saves every

The vast amounts books, movies, museums, and articles portray the great struggle for survival during that period of time. I found a theme of Man vs. Nature throughout the book Maus, the way they had to change their ways of living changed them for the rest of their lives. The characteristic of stingy and cheap carried on with them and is still around today and that is possibly how Jews got the stereotype of parsimonious. After I did some research on this theme I looked at the graphic novel in a completely different perspective, it was their environment that had to change them to become such great survivors, well some of them not so much. The disliking of Jews was very common in the 1930’s; the vast majority did not like them and thought they should be dead. Till this day, around 20% of Germans still have a latent hatred for the Jewish