The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

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Art Spiegelman is the author and artist of Maus. The complete Maus is composed of Maus I and Maus II. Maus I was published in 1986, Maus II was published in 1991. The protagonists for this book are Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and Art Spiegelman, Vladek’s cartoonist son. Volume I for the most part takes place in Poland, with Vladek describing his experience during Hitler’s rule to Art. Volume II is mainly on how the cartoonist Art struggles to make the book he has been working on of his parent’s journey during the Holocaust come together. In the following I will explain in more depth the setting, characters, and the art of this extraordinary book.
The setting of Maus I began in Vladek’s home. Artie visits his old grumpy father every once in a while, just to listen to the stories his dad tells him about the time during the war. The setting switches from the past to the present quite often. Vladek starts off by telling Artie how he met and eventually married his mother, Anja, to how they ended up in Auschwitz. The stories in between were about the struggles Artie’s parents endured during the war. The setting of Maus II switches from being in the Bungalows, a cabin to being at Rego Park to ending in Florida. Throughout Maus II Vladek becomes very ill, he has to be hospitalized several times, and to be worse Mala his current wife leaves him and takes all his money with her. Mala eventually comes back with Vladek once he becomes extremely ill. Vladek continues to tell Artie how he got out of Auschwitz, how he got saved by the Americans, and how he eventually got reunited with Anja.
The main characters for the Complete Maus are Vladek Spiegelman, Art Spiegelman, Anja Spiegelman, and Mala. As I mentioned before Vladek Spiegelman was a holocaust survivor. After the holocaust he became a grumpy stingy man. He said he was stingy because of all he went through, he didn’t want to waste anything, and everything to him was very valuable. Art Spiegelman is the son of Vladek. He is a cartoonist, trying to get as much information about the holocaust from his father to do a graphic novel. While he tries to get information Vladek and Art have many arguments, as father and son they don’t have a good relationship.

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