The book Maus is a tale about a man’s journey before, after and during World War Two. The main focus of the story is about the survival of a Jewish man and his family in Poland before and after any war violence or hate crimes are committed against people of Jewish faith. He tells his story about being imprisoned in concentration camps, surviving them and then living life after ward to his son, who is also a contributing narrator to the story.
Basically, Maus tells us the story of Art Spiegelman’s father, Vladek and his experience as a Jewish man in Poland during the time of World War Two and the Holocaust. The setting of the story goes back and forth between present day, where Art is speaking with his father, writing down his memories to back in the past, into Valdek’s memories on a young man.
The story starts off with a visit from Art to his father’s house in New York. He asks his father to tell him his life story so he can write a book. From here it cuts to Vladek’s memories and we start to learn and unravel some of his story. Vladek begins the story where he is a young man in Sosnowiec, Poland. He talks about a girl he was dating, but then began to see a girl, Anja, who eventually becomes his wife and Art’s mother. Anja is an intelligent young woman from a well off family, who helps Valdek start up his own textile factory. Anja and Valdek eventually get married and welcome a son, named Richiue into the world. After giving birth to her first son, Anja begins to suffer from post -partum depression and needs to be hospitalized. Valdek goes with his wife to Czechoslovakia, where she will receive the medical treatment she needs. During their journey to Czechoslovakia, Valdek and Anja witness the terrible spread of anti-Semiti...
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...mple is Vladek's exercise bike. Whenever Art interviews his father earlier on, Vladek hops on the bike and begins to pedal as he describes the events of his Holocaust experience. The faster Valdek pedals his bike, the more intense his memories seem to get. Another use of symbolism would have to be the vandalism of Valdek’s factory. When he and his wife are away in Czechoslovakia Valdek’s business get damaged, which can be seen as a foreshadowing of the events to come next.
Overall, Maus was an amazing novel with interesting depictions of the Holocaust straight from the memories of a survivor. The story becomes all the more intense and fulfilling knowing that an abundant amount of people went through the horrors portrayed in the pages of this novel. This novel is one that is sure to keep the reader’s attention, leaving one, at times wondering what will happen next.
In Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman presents his father’s Holocaust narrative alongside his own personal narrative, especially with regards to his relationship with Vladek. In Maus, Vladek is dependent on his skills and even his flaws to survive. He comes to make these traits a part of him for the rest of his life as he strives to survive no matter what. While these flaws helped him survive as a young man but these same traits estrange him with those that care about him such as his son. In a way there are two Vladeks in Maus, the one in the past that he speaks about and the one that is actually present.
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 the beginning of Maus the reader is thrown into a scenario of the Author, Art's, many visits to his
The past and present are two completely different moments, separated by a constantly growing space of time. Though they’re quite different from each other and separated in many ways, there are still apparent connections between the two. In Art Spiegelman’s graphic novels Maus I: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: And Here My Troubles Begin, Spiegelman integrates the concept of past versus present, most apparent in his relationship with his father. As Artie’s relationship with Vladek improves as Vladek recites his history, the present time and the past begin to blend into each other. At the beginning of Maus I, Artie is oblivious to his father’s rough experience in the holocaust, disconnected from his father and without a solid relationship. However, as Vladek recites his history, Art’s relationship with him begins to improve little by little and the lines between the past and present dissolve. By the end of the story, Vladek and Artie’s relationship has improved greatly and the lines between the past and present are completely dissolved.
The format of "Maus" is an effective way of telling a Holocaust narrative because it gives Art Spiegelman the chance to expresses his father's story without disrespecting him at the same time. It shows this through its comic book style drawings on a topic that is difficult to explain. With the illustrations 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.
Meaning, there are more verbal, written representations of people being dehumanized than in Maus. In Maus, it is more symbolic and descriptive in the way that Spieglman drew his characters. Both authors were very effective in using the theme of dehumanization within the stories. It really made the readers look at situations that they thought they knew about from a different perspective. It was heart wrenching to hear about how terrible humans treated each other in both stories.
Vladek learned many skills before the Holocaust that guided him throughout his life during the Holocaust. Vladek knew that he could use his skills to help him survive. First, Vladek taught English which resulted in not only survival, but Vladek also acquired clothing of his choice which almost no other person in his concentration had the privilege to do. After teaching English, Vladek found an occupation as a shoe repairman in the concentration camps. Vladek’s wife, Anja, was greatly mistreated by a female Nazi general, and Anja noticed that the general’s shoes were torn. Anja informed the general that her husband could repair her shoes, and after Vladek fixed the general’s shoes, the general was nice to Anja and brought her extra food.
“Maus” weaves through the past and present to tell the story of Holocaust survivors Vladek and Anja Spiegelman as well as how Art, their son, dealt with the repercussions of his father’s experiences. The author, Art Spiegelman, wrote “Maus” in comic form and portrayed Jews as mice, Poles as pigs, and Germans as cats. “Maus Ⅰ” begins in mid-1930’s Poland with his soon to be wed parents and concludes with them at the gates of Auschwitz in the winter of 1944. In “Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History”, by Art Spiegelman, the characters of Vladek and Art both struggle, although differently, to cope with their own blameworthiness, which demonstrates the power that guilt can hold over an individual’s life.
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.
When reading a traditional book, it is up to the reader to imagine the faces and landscapes that are described within. A well written story will describe the images clearly so that you can easily picture the details. In Art Spiegelman’s The Complete Maus, the use of the animals in place of the humans offers a rather comical view in its simplistic relation to the subject and at the same time develops a cryptic mood within the story. His drawings of living conditions in Auschwitz; expressions on the faces of people enduring torture, starvation, and despair; his experience with the mental institution and his mother’s suicide; and occasional snapshots of certain individuals, create a new dynamic between book and reader. By using the form of the graphic novel, Art Spiegelman created a narrative accompanied by pictures instead of needing to use immense worded detail.
The comic implies that surviving the holocaust affects Vladek’s life and wrecks his relationship with his son and his wife. In some parts of the story, Vladek rides a stationary bike while narrating his story (I, 81, panel 7-9). Given the fact that it is a stationary bike, it stays immobile: no matter how hard Vladek pedals, he cannot move forward. The immobility of the bike symbolizes how survivor’s guilt will never let him escape his past. Vladek can never really move past the holocaust: he cannot even fall asleep without shouting from the nightmares (II, 74, panel 4-5). Moreover, throughout the story, the two narrators depict Vladek before, during and after the war. Before the war, Vladek is characterized as a pragmatic and resourceful man. He is resourceful as he is able to continue his black business and make money even under the strengthened control of the Nazi right before the war (I, 77 panel 1-7). However, after surviving the holocaust, Vladek feels an obligation to prove to himself and to others that his survival was not simply by mere luck, but because h...
Well, Maus II was a combination of both. It showed a part of history in a way that has never been done before and it changes persons’ views of the camps themselves. The way the Spiegelman drew his father’s account and his own experience of being with his father was a completely different way of telling history. As for the emotions, J. Spencer Clark, a professor at Utah State University, stated this about reading graphic novels vs. just learning about historical events, “[I]t is easy for people to view historical events as inevitable...This type of explanation or view can distort or dissolve the understanding of human agency in historical events. The [college students] were able to recognize historical agency instead of understanding some historical events as inevitable” (Clark 2013). Clark is saying that because of the visual effects of graphic novels, students were able to see the actual processes the events that lead up to certain events, not just that a big event would have happened no mater what. This can be applied to Maus II because it put the reader in the point of view of Art’s dad in the concentration camp and, even though the reader knew Vladek would get out alive, they still felt all of the emotions that Vladek felt. This change of emotion towards the camps is due to the book being a graphic novel. Watts, a
...nd Vladek’s suffering, he still somewhat tries. He writes a book attempting to recognize what his father has been through. Although a piece of literature may never truly be able to grasp the ideas and mentality of the holocaust, Maus comes very close.
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.
Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan once said: “We, as human beings must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves”, which goes against the idea of nationalism and superiority expressed by so many people, and shows how important acceptance is in the real world. However, almost 70 years ago, Germany had a movement that gained an extraordinary number of followers, all of them persecuting Jews. Maus, a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, discussed and showed the horrors and atrocities Jews went through during the Nazi regime and during World War II. Unfortunately, over 6,000,000 Jewish people were killed during the holocaust. Adolf Hitler united most of Germany against a scapegoat used throughout history and spread anti-Jewish propaganda throughout Germany and Poland. A short story, “What, of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?”, written by Etgar Keret and translated into English by Nathan Englander, discusses the idea of friendship between a goldfish and a Russian man, named Sergei, who also fled persecution from the rulers of his home