Art Spiegelman's Maus

989 Words2 Pages

“A remarkable work, awesome in its conception and execution… at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir, and a comic book. Brilliant, just brilliant.”
-Jules Feiffer (1)
This is a commentary by Jules Feiffer about “Maus”, which is a survivor’s tale created by Art Spiegelman. As you can see from the commentary, this is a wonderful story, not only its the writing but also the art. The author made the story interesting that attracts many readers by changing many things from the first 3 –page version of Maus.

To analyse this story, first of all, we need to understand about the writing of this story.
Spiegelman focuses on many things in this story and the events in 1940s made them connected. In chapter 1, Vladek is a cold man; he could break up with Lucia just because of money. “Money can buy everything” seems to be the reasoning in this chapter. Because of money, he would marry Anja, whom he didn’t love. The focus at this point is not only on Vladek’s characteristics but also on a new beginning for Vladek, he would change many characteristics. In chapter 2, we see that Vladek took care of Anja when she got sick. Hysterica is a disease that can be cured not only by medicine but also by spirit. Anja couldn’t be comfortable if Vladek wasn’t by her side. I think that Vladek did everything for Anja because of his true love. I agree that this love began because of money but it grew up into true love. If Vladek didn’t love Anja, he wouldn’t give up his job in the company to go to the sanitarium. Not only in this chapter but also in many following chapters, many difficulties they need to suffer appear. Vladek did everything to protect Anja from being kiiled by the Gestapo. What a difficult period for them. When Anja ...

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...asy for the author to show the emotions of Vladek when he talked about the past.
For balancing, the author makes it reasonable when he makes a connection between the writing and art. In the art is shown the emotion of the characters, the background, and what was going on. Many young readers who have never known about the 1940s in Europe can understand clearly through the art the difficult conditions for Jews then.
In conclusion, it’s a good story not only in writing but also in art. It talks much about the past, the life in 1940s in Europe, but it doesn’t make the reader bored. Reading this book is not only learning about literature but also learning history. The success of the story comes from the balance between writing and art.

Works Cited

(1) the back page of Maus book.
(2): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Europe (28/8/2012, 6:00pm)

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