Maus

When I first examined Maus I figured, okay, this will more or less be a graphic novel that uses animal characterizations to approach a very serious subject. However, I was surprised by the fact that the characters as animals had almost nothing to do with how the story was written, but had everything to do with how the story was perceived. The telling of Maus isn't a recounting of a Holocaust experience. Instead, Maus is a very comprehensive tale about Spiegelman's experience in gleaning the information about the Holocaust from his Father. Their relationship to each other, as separate from the Holocaust was very intriguing. Getting to know the author and reading the book as it was being created inside itself was very, for lack of a better term, inception-like.

With the characters as animals, Spiegelman was able to use clever devices to sell the reader on certain things that would have been much more difficult or bland had the characters been human. One device he used was mask-wearing, in order to hide from enemies. During the recounting of the Holocaust, Vladek is often seen wearing a pig-mask to represent himself as Polish instead of Jewish and when Spiegelman is being questioned by reporters and businessmen in Maus II. Of course the text does not directly state that any masks were worn, but the device itself is instantly recognizable and understood by the reader, which helps to grease the storyline and make this point clear.  The specific use of mice, cats, and dogs all seemed to make a lot of sense to me, but the choice of pigs to represent the Poles, or the mention of frogs to represent the French, was puzzling. It wasn't that I maybe didn't buy the connection, but rather why he would intentionally use such undesirable animals to do so. In some ways, the use of animals seemed like a metaphor that exposes our own animalistic nature in the face of survival and the horrors of war. Maus of course is not the first to do this. The use of animals has often been used to approach serious human dilemmas, such as seen with Animal Farm. Making the decision to depict the characters as animals does however make the story more sympathetic and relative to the reader in the way that we are capable of assuming the faces and roles of those characters as ourselves instead of distinct 'other' individuals had they been human.

What I struggled with when reading Maus was the fact that I began to see Vladek as a racist caricature of the miserly old Jew. I was happy when Spiegelman made reference to this aspect later in the book, but I often questioned myself on how to interpret the stereotype if indeed this was the truth to this character. Although, what I think Spiegelman really showed by highlighting these characteristics was that these traits were what kept Vladek alive. His craftiness, planning and wit that resulted in his stinginess were also relevant in survival situations. Vladek often bought his way out of situations, with things that he had held secret from others, or presented food when everyone else thought it was gone. This resourcefulness really paid off for him, even if it painted him unfavorably in other ways.

All in all I think Maus transcends being just a holocaust book and enters a realm that deals with universal human instinct and relations. I was very inspired by this text, despite how depressing it could be.