Maus I

 

(Picture from Goodreads.com)

1.       Bibliography

 

Spiegelman, Art. (1980). MAUS I. New York: NY. Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-394-74723-1

2.       Plot Summary

Maus I is the retelling of the author’s, Art Spiegelman, father’s story of the Holocaust. The story jumps from present time to the past as Spiegelman’s father relays the events to Art as he remembers them. Jumping back and forth to the present, the reader witnesses the effects of The Holocaust on Vladek Spiegelman.

Starting the story in 1935, Vladek tells how he met Art’s mother, and they were married. He starts to tell the events that led to the family going into hiding, and traveling around from hide-a-way to hide-a-way in order to avoid the concentration camps.

Vladek Spielman went through many ordeals in work, being apart of the military, moving his family around to protect him, sending his son away to keep safe (and he ultimately was a victim of the war) and then his wife’s suicide later in life.

This detailed graphic novel conveys the hardships of being a Jew during World War II, and the effects of the war even after the liberation. The Jewish citizens are drawn as mice and the Germans are cats in this black and white depiction.

3.       Critical Analysis

Spiegelman’s book is written in graphic novel format. He chose to portray the Jewish people as mice, and the Nazi’s as cats, and the Polish as pigs. The symbolism is not lost on the reader that cats pray on mice and ultimately the mice are helpless creatures. The game of “cat and mouse” is apparent as the Jewish people would hide (as Vladek Spiegelman did many times during the war) and the Nazi’s would hunt them. The images of the cats are drawn with angry faces, squinty eyes, and overall postures of aggression. The mice appear scared, skittish, and meeker than their opposing force. The Polish being represented as pigs could be for multiple reasons. To keep the animal façade going, Spiegelman had to give them an animal face. The pigs are drawn with neutral faces, as the Polish were supposed to be a neutral territory but they could also be representing dirty, selfish, greedy people. In the story they tended to help those that helped them in some way (like paying them money to hide them). Overall, not drawing the people as animals does help to make the book less “graphic,” because people tend to be less offended or upset over images of animals vs people.

The book is told in flashback as Vladek tells Art about his experience. Jumping back and forth in time, the reader is also able to see how Vladek was effected by his experiences in the way he treats his new wife and Artie. Vladek is angry, and unable to let go of the past. Artie seems to always be in the shadow of a brother he never knew that died in the war. When Arie’s mom commits suicide, it effects both Artie and Vladek in a way that pushes them further apart. Art struggles to understand his father and seeks to use him to write his book, but ultimately uncovers his father’s motivations for his behaviors.

There is an excerpt from a comic Spiegelman wrote about his mother’s suicide, where he did give the characters human faces that are gaunt and dark. Seeing this, the reader can picture how much more dark this novel could be if human faces were given to all the characters. This comic itself shows how Spiegelman uses any ugly part of his life for his artistic pursuits. He struggles to understand why and how this would upset his father. The conflict between the two men is a driving force in this book that has the reader wondering if they will be able to mend their differences and animosities and form a stronger bond before it is too late.

4.       Awards/ Reviews

“A loving documentary and brutal fable, a mix of compassion and stoicism [that] sums up the experience of the Holocaust with as much power and as little pretension as any other work I can think of.”
–The New Republic

“A quiet triumph, moving and simple– impossible to describe accurately, and impossible to achieve in any medium but comics.”
–The Washington Post

“Spiegelman has turned the exuberant fantasy of comics inside out by giving us the most incredible fantasy in comics’ history: something that actually occurred…. The central relationship is not that of cat and mouse, but that of Art and Vladek. Maus is terrifying not for its brutality, but for its tenderness and guilt.”
–The New Yorker

“All too infrequently, a book comes along that’s as daring as it is acclaimed. Art Spiegelman’s Maus is just such a book.”
–Esquire

“An epic story told in tiny pictures.”
–The New York Times

The graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker) • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • One of Variety’s “Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read”

5.       Connections

Many students are interested in The Holocaust due to the irrational and inconceivable nature of the events. This book would be a great read for them, or to introduce them to the events of the time period.

 

Excerpts can be used by teachers to help teach about World War II and The Holocaust.

 

Fans of graphic novels or historical events will also enjoy this book.

 

I highly recommend reading Maus II after reading the first one, as the story goes into more detail.