Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

1173 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: World war 2 american literature

One - The Sheik

Art visits his dad, Vladek, in Rego Park, New York, after being away for about two years. Vladek has married Mala after the suicide of Art's mother. Art persuades Vladek to begin telling him the story of his life, which Art hopes to use for a book. Vladek begins at the time that he is a young man working in the textile business near Czestochowa, Poland. He has an affair with the beautiful Lucia before he is introduced to Anna Zylberberg. Anna (Anja) is from a wealthy family and is well educated but nervous and sickly. Vladek and Anja are married in 1937, and Vladek moves to the town of Sosnowiec, Anja's hometown.

Two - The Honeymoon

Art visits his father in Rego Park several times over the next few months. Vladek is focused on the many pills he takes and on his failing health. Art is focused on trying to get the details of Vladek's story. The family prospers since Anja's father has given them money to invest in a textile factory. Vladek and Anja have a son, Richlieu, but after his birth, Anja suffers a deep depression. Vladek accompanies her to a sanitarium in Czechoslovakia, where she is to be treated. On their trip to the sanitarium they see a Nazi banner and hear of the first actions against Jewish people. Anja recovers from her depression, and they return to Poland only to find that their factory has been robbed. Anja's father helps them financially, and for a time, their life is good. But in August of 1939, Vladek is drafted into the Polish army and sent to fight the Germans.

Three - Prisoner of War

During additional visits to see his father, Art hears Vladek tell about his service in the Polish army. Vladek has little training and shoots his gun only for appearances, but he manages to kill a German soldier. He is later taken prisoner by the Germans and sent to a POW camp in Germany where he cleans stables. It is cold, and the Jewish prisoners are treated worse than the other Polish prisoners are, but Vladek volunteers to work for the German soldiers and gains some additional food and warmth this way. He has a dream in which his grandfather appears to him and tells him that he will be free on a specific day in the future. The dream comes true, and Vladek is sent back to Poland where Jewish authorities are able to connect him with a friend of his family.

Show More
Related

  • Time Travels: Unearthing Holocaust Memories in The Devil's Arithmetic

    432 Words  | 1 Pages

    This story goes on talking about the past in the concentration camp all of a sudden Hannah is back in the dining room table and notices the tattoo on Aunt Eva's arm and recognizes it. She says the numerical significance of the number to Aunt Eva who says that when she was young she was known by another name Rivka. After coming to America many of the survivors changed their names. Grandpa Will, Eva's brother, was known as Wolfe before. She tells Hannah that to them only Gitl and Yitzchak survived the

    Read More

  • An Uncommon Soldier By Sarah Rosetta Wakeman

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    Great people often arise from unlikely places. During the civil war women were barred from serving in the army; however, women did sometimes disguise themselves as men and enlisted in both the Confederate and Union armies. During the Civil War years of 1861 to 18-65, soldiers under arms mailed countless letters home from the front. There are multiple accounts of women serving in military units during the Civil War, but a majority of these incidents are extremely hard to verify. Nevertheless, there is the one well-documented incident of the female Civil War soldier by the name of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman.

    Read More

  • Go My Son by Chaim Shapiro

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    While spending time in Kazakhstan, his desire to go out and fight grows stronger and stronger. Through much hard work and planning he eventually manages to enlist in a Polish Army division called Battalion 92, which helps maintain the railways which deliver supplies to the fronts. After nearly starving to death on an assignment in the Ural Mountains, he deserts the Battalion, escaping to Chelyabinsk, where he joins a military school. Upon completion, he is sent to fight at the front in a Polish Army Reserve, achieving his goal o...

    Read More

  • Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

    681 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lina Vilkas is a fifteen year old girl who is the protagonist of this story. She was taken, by the NKVD, from her house with her mother and brother to exile. Later in the story she meets Andrius and falls in love with him. She marries him after the war while moving from place to place. Andrius uses his misfortune as a fortune to help others. He takes care of Lina and her family as best he can. Nikolai Kretzsky is a young NKVD officer who helps Lina and her mother even after Lina insulted him. Mr Stalas is a Jew who is deported with the other people. He wanted to die with dignity. He is often referred to as The Bald Man. He confesses that he was liable for the deportation. Janina is a starry-eyed young girl who likes to help others and to talk to her "dead" doll. When few selected people are brought to the North Pole for more suffering, dozens of people die from cholera and pneumonia. Lina however, survives and manages to save Jonas and Janina with the help of Nikolai Kretzsky.

    Read More

  • Judith Ortiz Cofer's The Story Of My Body

    119 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Story of My Body” Ortiz Cofer represents herself narrative story when she were young. Her autobiography has four headlines these parts are skin, color, size, and looks. Every headline has it is own stories underneath it. Ortiz Cofer’s is expressing her life story about her physical and psychological struggle with her body. Heilbrun’s narrative, “Writing a Woman’s Life” shows that, a woman’s does not have to be an ideal to write a self-autobiography to tell the world something about herself and her life. Ortiz Cofer’s facing a body struggle that is not made by herself, but by people around her. Therefore, every woman is able to write can write an autobiography with no exception.

    Read More

  • Humanity in Maus

    1544 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...childern in a neighboring ghetto. A friend showed Vladek the bunker under the shows and said he and the family could hide in there. There was a Jewish stranger in Sosnowiec who helped Vladek find food and shelter. Even in Auschwitz the Jews helped eachother out. Vladek managed to get Mandelbaum some necessities like a spoon, belt, and proper fitting shoes. Anja was helped in the camps as well. Mancie and a few other women would help and protect Anja. And Vladek helped Anja when he could. He would send bread and letters for Anja with Mancie. The Jews helped each other to survive.

    Read More

  • Géricault's The Raft Of The Medusa

    550 Words  | 2 Pages

    Without a doubt, Géricault's most famous piece of work is The Raft of the Medusa. Painted with oil paint on a canvas 491 cm x 716 cm (Theodore Gericault, artrenewal.org) and released 1817, The Raft of the Medusa was based off an actual event; in 1816 a French naval Méduse became a shipwreck off the shores of northwest Africa. All but a small fraction of the survivors died before help came to their aid. The members of this survivor group turn to shocking acts, like cannibalism, that left the story covered in shame. Géricault painted this realistic memorial to arouse government negligence, but in no way meant to criticize the government itself. (The J.Paul Getty Museum, getty.edu) In order to get the realistic aspects right, the artist interviewed

    Read More

  • Segu a Novel by Maryse Conde

    1540 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the novel Segu, Maryse Conde beautifully constructs personal and in depth images of African history through the use of four main characters that depict the struggles and importance of family in what is now present day Mali. These four characters and also brothers, by the names of Tiekoro, Siga, Naba, and Malobali are faced with a world changing around their beloved city of Bambara with new customs of the Islamic religion and the developing ideas of European commerce and slave trade. These new expansions in Africa become stepping stones for the Troare brothers to face head on and they have brought both victory and heartache for them and their family. These four characters are centralized throughout this novel because they provide the reader with an inside account of what life is like during a time where traditional Africa begins to change due to the forceful injection of conquering settlers and religions. This creates a split between family members, a mixing of cultures, and the loss of one’s traditions in the Bambara society which is a reflection of the (WHAT ARE SOME CHANGES) changes that occur in societies across the world.

    Read More

  • The Father-Son Relationship Between Holocaust And Maus

    593 Words  | 2 Pages

    These issues are shown from beginning to end and in many instances show the complexity of the father-son relationship that was affected from the Holocaust. Even though this relationship gets better by the end of the second book, Vladek’s and Artie’s relationship remains tenuous for the majority of the book. This begins at the very beginning when Artie’s friends leave him behind when they were skating and Artie goes to his father crying and Vladek says, “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them in a room with no food for a week THEN you see what it is Friends” (Spiegelman 6).

    Read More

  • Vladek Spiegelman Character Analysis

    513 Words  | 2 Pages

    Vladek lived a normal life before the war, got married to Anja a daughter of a millionaire. He also got Richieu his first son. They all lived a happy life for awhile until the Swastika was raised as an emblem of the German Nazi party. That’s when the fairytale ended. Vladek went to the army and got captured by the Nazi. Back to luckiness, he could easily died at the P.O.W camp, disease, hunger or even get beat up by the Nazi. On page 48, the bullets came in his direction, the bullet ricochet on his helmet, he could have died if the soldier aim better or if he didn’t have the helmet, he could have easily been dead. Being resourceful also helped him in the war. On page 53, he bathed in the river in the winter, unlike his soldier mates, he didn’t get infection on his frostbites.

    Read More

  • Use of Animals in Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Metamorphosis Essay

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    ​The major themes of Franz story were inspired by the cultural and historical events in Prague, which is the author’s town. The town was full of hostility which was caused by economic status and differences in people’s cultural backgrounds. The story is told using the interior monologue styles. It focuses on the thoughts and feelings of the main character which support the themes of abandonment and troubled relationship.

    Read More

  • Imagery In Lady With Lapdog, By Anton Chekhov

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    It captures the emotions left in the hearts of these characters. In the novel, Gurov’s imagery differentiates between young romance and the connections of lasting love. One of the main sceneries of the story takes place in the beautiful resort town of Yalta. According to Chekhov’s novel, Yalta is described as “The water was a warm, tender purple, the moonlight lay on its surface in a golden strip” (2). Yalta is an exciting place for new, colorful, and youth romance to begin. Another part of the novel’s setting are the confined homes of both Anna and Gurov. Where gray haunts their homes in their monotonous days away from each other. Chekhov mentions, “He sat up in bed, covered by the cheap gray quilt, which reminded him of a hospital blanket, and in his vexation he fell to taunting himself” (10). The reoccurrence of the gray description of the homes of Gurov and Anna while they are in despair when away from each other, with the colorful images of Yalta and the emotions of happiness when they are together, show how the separation in setting is important to the emotions of the characters. At the resort with Anna, Gurov’s day are full of passion, excitement and a carefree lifestyle similar to the youth of society. While away from her, Gurov savors the precious instants of her company. “Anna Sergeyevna did not come to him in his dreams, she accompanied him everywhere, like his shadow, following him

    Read More

  • The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Art Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    Vladek’s controlling ways leads him to invent a life that he never had. Vladek wields his reality by reinventing his past life. When Vladek tells Art about his marriage to Anja, he portrays his marriage like a fairy tale. Vladek says, “We were both very happy, and lived happy, happy ever after” (Spiegelman 2:136). He reinvents his past life after the end of the Holocaust as free of woe. Correspondingly, he loses himself...

    Read More

  • The impact of survivor’s guilt in Art Spiegelman’s Maus

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

More about Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

Open Document