Maus - W7
In Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's tale, we see a graphic narrative of Art's father Vladek's Holocaust experience, as it is paralleled to the story of Art's own relationship with Vladek through the telling of his life story. This book is interesting because the narrative is also telling its own story and how it was being written. We not only get a glimpse of Art's family history but of his family's dynamic before and throughout the Holocaust. The story takes us through Vladek's marriage, to his textile business, to his time in the POW camp experience, as well as his wife's suicide.
The comic depicts its characters as animals, where the Jews are represented as mice and the Germans as cats. This is a powerful characterization of the German and Jewish dynamic and in away, allows the reader to kind of see the perspective of the Jews in their persecution. Nowadays, it is so often that we hear of horrible acts of murder, racism, and hate, yet feel like it is far away and will not affect us. When we hear these things it is easy for us to say "That's horrible, how sad!" and move on with our lives, but it does not alter our immediate reality, which is frankly quite a scary thing that we have become numb to.
It is not until we see and experience these kind of horrors and pains, that we are able to identify with situations similar to this one. Spiegelman gives us an opportunity to catch a glimpse into his and his father's point of view through the representation of the Jews and Germans as animals, and even though we may not have directly witnessed the Holocaust, we clearly understand that the Jewish people were seen as a nuisance and pretty much as pests to society who had to be exterminated in the eyes of the Germans. Though I have never experienced this level of discrimination, I have been treated differently and have been addressed with racism before, and even the small things I have witnessed have made a big impact on me, so I cannot imagine the emotions that had come with being a Jew during that time.
The comic depicts its characters as animals, where the Jews are represented as mice and the Germans as cats. This is a powerful characterization of the German and Jewish dynamic and in away, allows the reader to kind of see the perspective of the Jews in their persecution. Nowadays, it is so often that we hear of horrible acts of murder, racism, and hate, yet feel like it is far away and will not affect us. When we hear these things it is easy for us to say "That's horrible, how sad!" and move on with our lives, but it does not alter our immediate reality, which is frankly quite a scary thing that we have become numb to.
It is not until we see and experience these kind of horrors and pains, that we are able to identify with situations similar to this one. Spiegelman gives us an opportunity to catch a glimpse into his and his father's point of view through the representation of the Jews and Germans as animals, and even though we may not have directly witnessed the Holocaust, we clearly understand that the Jewish people were seen as a nuisance and pretty much as pests to society who had to be exterminated in the eyes of the Germans. Though I have never experienced this level of discrimination, I have been treated differently and have been addressed with racism before, and even the small things I have witnessed have made a big impact on me, so I cannot imagine the emotions that had come with being a Jew during that time.
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