Performative Memorialization In Maus: A Survivor's Tale

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Recommended: Creative writing about the holocaust

“Memorialization of the Holocaust has taken many forms in the sixty years that have followed it. The memory of this event seems more present now than directly after the war, but an increasing awareness of the limits of representing this memory has also cast a shadow (Sicher 355). Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale recontextualizes this history by addressing such limits of representation, functioning as a unique form of Holocaust memorialization, which elicits what I term "performative memorialization." Performative memorialization is a layered memorial activity that performs in every Holocaust genre to create a temporally fluid, Bakhtinian dialogic between the author and the subject (memory) and the event and the audience (history)-combating It provides a performance that is told by the author and subject (Spiegelman and his father Vladek) and talks about a certain memorial (Holocaust) which, in turn, relates to the audience. Costello describes how through the use of generic movements and representational shifts, “Maus speaks to re-visioned memory intertwined with history for a performative, evocative Holocaust absence made temporarily present.” (23). This means that because Maus is filled with multiple genres like narrative, autobiography, biography, cartoon, film, and photography, and its use of visual and textual narration, it creates a performative dialogic with the past and present of Holocaust memory. Costello also talks about how in a performative memorial the reader must be forced into an active rather than passive participation. She claims that “Readers must engage with texts in order to understand them” (23) which Spiegelman does through his language of writing and content. Not only that but, Costello also talks about the importance of a listening audience and how performative memorialization depends on that which I truly believe is It examines and reevaluates the body of Maus scholarship, articulating trends and tendencies, with an eye on expanding the critical discourse.” In this peer, reviewed article Park’s subcategories include “Trauma, Postmemory, and Generational Transmission, Autobiography, History/PostHistory, Ethics of Representation, Postmodernism, Narrotology, Photography and Art, Gender, Jewish Identity, and Use of English”. In each subcategory, Park goes into deep detail critiquing the book’s discourse. In the first category, Park examines how the Holocaust has effected not only Vladek, a first-generation survivor but also his son Artie, a second-generation survivor. He explains how “the critical discourse focusing on trauma, postmemory, and generational transmission often aims to reevaluate the impact that the Holocaust has upon the second generation of the historical event” (Park 149). This illustrates that through Spiegelman’s use of traumatic discourse, the book focuses on the effect that the Holocaust has on Artie not only his father Vladek. This interpretation of the discourse of Maus is pretty accurate. It shows how not only first-generation survivors struggle with the trauma but the generation after that suffers as well. Although Park has a good point, I believe that he could have eluded onto the subject and gave more examples to illustrate how Artie is affected by the war. The

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