Due by class time on Tuesday, November 27.
For this response, I'd like for you to think about the form Spiegelman uses to tell this story, particularly about the use of images. Think first about how you are affected by this reading experience. How do you read differently than you would a book with just words? Next, choose one passage from the novel to illustrate what the graphic novel form adds to (or takes away from) the telling of the story. How does the imagery affect your interpretation of the events (and particularly of the passage you chose)? Ultimately, why tell this particular story through both words and pictures? What do you think about Spiegelman's choice to tell his father's story this way?
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Reactions to Maus
Since the beginnings of my education in literature, the notion of comic books holding scholarly value has been ignored by all professors. Perhaps it is the stigma that falls upon the genre, where comics are nothing more than a child’s diversion valuing pictures over words. Art Spiegelman’s Maus, however, is a beacon to the literary excellence the genre can possess, enforcing its literary value with powerful, representative images. It is a welcome change to the pattern of seeing great literature as nothing more than the author’s words. We are allowed to see what the author wants us to see, reinforcing the message he attempts to convey.
Normally, when a person reads a book, they are left to interpret the physical appearances of characters and settings based upon the author’s descriptions. Adding the visual element, however, opens up more possibilities for both the reader and the author. The reader can use these images to interpret the author’s meanings to a deeper level. Spiegelman, for example, portrays the Jews in Maus as mice, while portraying the Nazis as cats. What Spiegalman accomplishes is a personal depiction of each group of characters. The Jews are forced to hide in darkened buildings and cramped places in fear of the Nazis and their many methods of torture and brutality—much like a game of cat and mouse. In this manner, the reader is more easily able to describe the many characters presented in the story simply by their appearance alone. Combining the pictures with Spiegalman’s literary style, we begin to see through the character’s animal-like appearances and recognize the underlying humanity.
In one particular scene, the Nazis raid the town of Srodula and take many children away to Auschwitz. The pictures show the brutal nature of the Nazis herding the children into the vans—and the grim fate that awaits those who resisted (108). In this scene, the images add a strong, emotional strength to the dialogue, forcing the reader to understand the severity of the situation the characters go through. Without the pictures, this dramatic effect is unachievable. The passage would be unnerving due to its brutal circumstance, but would most likely remain just another aspect of war to the reader. In addition, the picture forces the reader to confront the ugly reality of the situation as the author intended, denying the reader the chance to lessen the impact on their mind and continue reading without reflecting upon the situation.
In essence, Spiegalman could not achieve the effect he achieves without the imagery he provides. His father’s story becomes something more than another WWII survivor’s tale. We are offered a chance to see the extremities of war, the sorrow and suffering that he and his family endured, and quickly sympathize with both the animalistic and human traits of the characters. His images convey the sadness and fear of his father’s generation, supplementing his dialogue with a true representation of the humanity at the time.
When Art Spiegelman wrote Maus, he knew he would impact his audience more than ever with his form and style of novel. His strength, I believe, is his use of images. The story is told with drawings of a mouse which is the Jews and the Cats which are the Nazis. By him portraying the people by animals, I think it makes it read easier. If the story was drawn with human face suffering, the book may have been harder to read. The use of the mouse and cat are very interesting in that it works for the novel. From what we know, cats prey on mice and in the book; the cats are the Nazis and are tormenting and trying to kill the mice. In a way, you don’t think this is happening to real people but when Speigelman has to hide from being a rat and becomes a pig, he has to take on another form in order to survive. So here it seems like it is a comic book rather than a real story which could seem to have a lighter feel to the subject. However, others may feel that the writer is taking the subject matter too lightly.
This is the first time I have a read a graphic novel and it is a different experience. When reading books with words, we create what we think the scenes looked like and at times, the pictures may not be accurate to what the author wants you to see them. With him telling the story of his father, I don’t think Speigelman wants us to interpret our way. He wants us to see it the way his father did. With the exact details and graphs of the escape routes, it makes the story more personal. I read this differently because I see what his father saw and I read the story as he lived it. The holocaust is one of those topics that one has many stories to tell if they survived it and it has more of an impact because the images accompany rather than just words.
The passage that I find to illustrate what a graphic novel is would be when Vladek was sent to the war after not listening to his father. When in the trenches he is caught and they see that his gun is warm, they know he was shooting. At this point, I saw what he saw. The detail of the war and the Nazis to see how they treated the other soldiers was very graphic. This is important to the book because when we think wars, we have never been there fighting and to see what his father saw and how others were treated around him is disturbing. Here, you feel anger and don’t know how people could have done such inhumane things and actually got away with it. The drawings show great detail but are disturbing because we know this really happened and since it is drawn out, it is a little easier to look at rather if it were real picture. The use of imagery here, therefore, I think is very important because in a way you are in his shoes.
In conclusion, I think Spiegelman’s choice to tell the story the way he did makes it powerful, in a sense. The images that accompany the words are essential in making the story work because it is a combination of things. Not only is it a story about survival, it is also a story about love and endurance. His father went through a great deal and it must have been hard for him to tell his story to his own son. With the story written, his son took a chance and drew it out, which ended up working in the end. It is hard to talk about the Holocaust and by drawing the story out, it made it easier to read but as powerful if it were just words. The images are real and are not made up by our imaginations and this I think he did not want us to do make them up because his father lived those images. In so, he shared what his father saw and that makes it as powerful if we were there. To see this when all our loves we were just told what happened an never saw pictures, it is really powerful because someone that is a survivor not historian is telling the story, which is important to the novel.
Art Spiegelman’s MAUS is, in my opinion, written in a form that is ingenious for depicting a new viewpoint on the trials and tribulations of Jewish concentration camps. I was initially stunned to find the entire book written as a comic. After all, memoirs are usually written in a common format, which is not through the use of images. Comics are usually reserved for stories of wit and humor, not of a serious nature. Therefore, I was unsure of what to expect when I began reading MAUS. However, I found the comic book style of Spiegelman’s novel extremely enjoyable. I find that I read a little slower, most likely due to the added concentration on the author’s detailed visuals. In my opinion, I feel that MAUS was written in this form for two reasons: as a forced imagery for readers and as a bridge for a generational gap.
I believe that the comic styling of MAUS is a clever way of not allowing the reader to imagine anything but the actual history. The first publication of the novel was written about thirty years after World War Two. Therefore, the readers of Spiegelman’s book are unable to directly relate to his novel. In my opinion, I feel that Spiegelman used comics to portray the exact circumstances of concentration camps. The author realized that actual images and pictures would be too graphic for his viewers but that a lack of images would allow the viewers to picture the camps in a light a little softer than that of reality. For example, Spiegelman retells a memory of his father- where the Germans killed children who refused to leave for Auschwitz (p. 108). The author states, “Some kids were screaming and screaming. They couldn’t stop. So the Germans swinged them by the legs against a wall and they never anymore screamed”. In this passage, the reader is informed that the Germans killed children. However, the image used to illustrate this passage shows a German swinging a child into a wall, resulting in a splattering of blood and a lifeless miniature corpse. The concentration camps were, to say the least, grotesque and unbearable. Spiegelman uses comic styling so that his readers are forced to see the same images in his novel that his characters were forced to face in reality.
I also feel that Spiegelman uses a comic book style in order to show a tie between two generations. The son, Artie, is a comic artist and the father, a survivor of the concentration camps. MAUS is the retelling of the father’s story but in the son’s form. This compromise shows an unspoken understanding between the two generations, allowing a gap to be bridged between two different viewpoints. The comprehension of the occurrences during World War Two obviously vary between those taught about the concentration camps and those who endured them. The son tells his father’s story in his own way- a way that he is able to comprehend his father’s past. Furthermore, I feel that Spiegelman uses comics because he realizes that the form will gain more attention and viewership, resulting in his father’s story being heard by an adequate number of people.
The combination of art and writing is a concept that I feel is somewhat lost beyond elementary level books. As children, we are freely given books that contain pictures to better help us put ourselves in the story, and that allow us to get an accurate mental depiction of the characters and the happenings. However, with most novels for adults, we are forced to come up with the images on our own. This can be both fun and rewarding as we read, but it can also lead to inaccurate perceptions of characters and events in the novel. While reading Spiegelman’s Maus, I find that I am pleased to have images provided so that I can get an accurate mental picture of the events of the Holocaust. Typically, as I am reading other novels, I find myself drifting in and out of the story and its events. However, this graphic novel is made very real by the images that come along with the dialogue. Instead of simply reading and only being interested in the story when I find my mental images interesting, the pictures provide me with a better insight to what was really going on. The pictures bring a certain emotional appeal with them, so that the reader is more emotionally connected with the story.
The images also allow the readers to get a “physical” sense of what the Jews underwent. One such example is when Vladek witnesses the living conditions of his cousin Miloch’s family. We are given images of a garbage dumping hole that houses the family. The written description states that “Inside this garbage hole was here separated a tiny space – maybe only 5 feet by 6 feet...In there was living Miloch, his wife and their 3-years-old boy.” This description alone serves to tell the reader how awful the conditions were, but I would not have been able to picture the severity of the conditions without the images. We are able to see Meinka dropping a bucket of trash into the bin, and the picture depicts the smells that are coming both from the newly dumped trash, and the trash bin itself. It also shows the readers just how small the family’s living space was inside the trash hole. Without the accompanying images, I would not have had the same idea of what conditions the family was living in. This is simply one example from numerous in the book in which the pictures give the readers a more accurate depiction of the way things actually were.
I believe that Spiegelman made a wise decision by choosing the graphic novel form to tell his father’s story. I think that the author realizes that adults are as affected by images as children are. If the novel had been written with words alone, there would be so much ambiguity in the images that readers developed to accompany the story, as illustrated above. I think Spiegelman wanted his readers to get a clear, accurate depiction of his father’s incredible story, and he knew that there would be no better way than to provide the images himself. The story is one that is filled with so much real action and so many overwhelming emotions, including anger, rage, exhaustion, sorrow, and grief. With so many emotions to portray, he wants readers to be able to “see” the events of the Holocaust with their own eyes. The story behind this novel is too real to be described in words alone.
Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale
I am really pleased with the form Art Spiegelman used in his novel, Maus I. The fact that it is in comic book form makes it a much more enjoyable read. Also, the fact that he uses mice to portray men is something that was not expected at all. This was the first book all semester that I have enjoyed reading and did not put it off til the last minute. Also, the comic book form made it feel like a much quicker read than all the rest of the novels we have read this semester. It also gave you a visual image of what exactly was going on. It is hard to even imagine what went on during that time, and although he does not show the gruesome details, it helps the reader form somewhat of an idea of what is going on.
During chapter five, Mouse Holes, the imagery is most effective. During this chapter, they are hiding from the Nazis in the holes and it shows how uncomfortable and crammed they have to be just to survive. Also, it shows the comic that Artie wrote after his mother’s death. It shows the pain he felt and that he blames his father for her suicide. It helps explain the last line of the novel when Artie say, “Murderer” (pg 159) to his father.
I interpreted that Spiegelman chose rats to tell this story because rats are animals that are not takinen to kindly. Whenever someone sees a mouse crawling around the most common first reaction would be to scream and kill it or a least scare it away. I feel that as Spiegelaman sat and heard his father’s story, he felt that it was hows the Jews were treated. If someone saw a Jew they screamed to let everyone know one was around. Just as his father was walking down the street and he approached children in the street they began screaming, “Help! Mommy! A Jew!” (pg 149). He soon had to deny what he was to keep from being turned in and killed. Also, the Nazis put up many traps to catch the Jews, just as someone would set up a trap if they were to find one in their house. It is sad that during that time, you could not trust anyone. The Speigelmans were set up many times and eventually got caught for good and was sent to a concentration camp. I feel that Spiegelman’s only choice while writing this novel was to do it in a comic book sort of way. If helps each reader get the same thing out of the novel, while getting different stuff at the same time as well. There are many ways this novel could be interpretated but only one way at the same time. The reader is forced to see these Jews as mice running around Poland trying to escape death just a a mouse would if he were to be caught rummaging around someone’s house.
Maus: A Survivor's Tale
At first, when I started reading Maus, I had a tendency to ignore the pictures in order to focus on the story. I felt the pictures were a distraction because I would stop to analyze them, which would tend to make me forget what I had just read. Then, as I delved further into the novel I became more interested in the illustrations. The “comic book” style helped to give me a vision of exactly what each character went through, instead of having to imagine each scene by myself. The illustrations of the Jews as mice and the Germans as cats give a satirical aspect to the relationship between the two cultures. Ultimately, I believe the pictures enhanced my understanding of the story because they gave a background to the words, which a normal novel does not give- one has to come up with the images on their own.
The aspect of the story that had the most impact on me was the story of Anna and her personal struggle, which ultimately led to her suicide. In such a tragic novel, this separate story gives the book an even more personal and heartbreaking reality, which other Holocaust stories may lack. The passage that illustrates Artie’s comic, Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case Story, adds to the novel. First, the addition of this separate story shows how Artie felt and dealt with the struggles and death of his mother. The illustrations in this part of the novel are very graphic and dark, which symbolizes how Artie felt about this situation. The bluntly honest and descriptive line, “My father found her when he got home from work… her wrists slashed and an empty bottle of pills nearby…” is one example of how Artie was impacted by his mother’s suicide. Later in the comic, it is displayed that Artie feels responsible for his mother’s suicide. By creating a comic of what has happened to his family, it has given Artie a way to become separated from the situation; therefore, he is able to separate his feelings. I believe the fact that Artie feels guilty is why the comic is written in a tragic and descriptive way.
The passage which includes Anna’s suicide story also adds to the novel by relating to the passage when Vladek tells Artie that he had burned Anna’s diaries. This second passage helps by representing Artie’s need to compensate for his guilt. Since this comic shows how Artie tends to feel responsible for his mother’s suicide, this gives reason to why he greatly wants to tell Anna’s story of the Holocaust. He asks his father to find Anna’s diaries many times, to the point of nagging. When his father reveals that he has burned them, Artie becomes infuriated and tries to place the blame of his mother’s suicide on his father by calling him a murderer. This one declaration of guilt unto his father signifies how Artie still feels hurt and guilt for his mother’s death. It also shows Artie’s need to get rid of the guilt because it is obviously affecting him. Artie is trying to compensate for the suicide of his mother by telling her survivor story.
I think the way Spiegelman chose to tell his father’s story is ingenious. No other story is told this way, especially one as serious as the Holocaust. Many times, the Holocaust as a whole is a hard concept for people to grasp. The subject tends to obtain an “out of sight, out of mind” aspect because people during the present tend to not think about what has happened in the past. By using a “child’s method” this can make it easier for people to understand the struggles of the Jews.
I really enjoy the use of images in this book. They bring the novel to life as well as keep you interested in what you are reading. I am surprised though that I have never encountered this for a class before; it really makes the reading more enjoyable. I read this differently than a book with only words, by seeming to grasp the whole story at once and not having to think as deeply about what Spiegelman is trying to say. The images show you what he is trying to say instead of relying on only words to make you have the same vision. Spiegelman’s comic On the Hell Planet a Case History really brings to life the way his mother died without it he would have just been telling a story but with the images present this allows you to see emotions the visualization of the pain that he was going through. The way that the pages and pictures were drawn in a darker light also gave a mood that words alone would not have been able to accomplish. The imagery shows to me that he feels bad about what happened by the way it is drawn, where words alone I don’t think would have done that. I think that this was a great idea for Spiegelman to tell his fathers story this way. There is no other way I can think of that would do it the justice it deserves.
When I first started reading the book Maus I paid no attention to the drawings. Instead I read the text straight through as I would read any other book. However, as I continued reading, I began to notice the pictures more and more. The pictures play a significant role in comprehending the story that Art Spiegelman is trying to portray. Therefore, the text is only half the story and it is essential to look at the images.
Through the images, I am able to find a deeper understanding of the story. I find the relationship between the Nazis and the Jews that Spiegelman portrays is perfect. The Nazis are depicted as cats and the Jewish population is depicted as mice. The relationship between the two shows that the cat chases the mouse out of the cat’s land. The cat might also try to catch the mouse in order to kill it. By looking at the pictures, the audience can see the amount of fear that the Jewish people truly have towards the Nazis. They would run and hide in bunkers just as mice run into tiny places in walls where cats cannot go. In addition, I think that the pictures portray the Jewish people as being the smarter people of the two. Artie wears a cat mask while walking around town and says “Heil Hitler” whenever he is stopped. He is able to undermine the Germans and avoid being sent away to concentration camps numerous times. I believe that Spiegelman purposefully portrays the mice as the smarter race in order to show a contradiction to the Nazis’ belief that the Jews are inferior. Furthermore, the fact that the Jewish population is trusting is similar to that of actual mice. Mice are easily misled when they see cheese, which is why homeowners use cheese to lure the mice to the trap. Similarly, the Jewish people are easily misled when they are told that they will be able to escape. Artie makes a huge mistake when he trusts the smugglers to take him and Anja to Hungary. He is also fooled when he lets the person leave his house when they are spotted in their hidden bunker.
The passage on pages 100-103 is a prime example of how the images help the audience get a first hand depiction of the types of situations that the Jewish people had to go through. The black background on the four pages shows that the time period in Artie’s life was a truly dark and dramatic period. Instead of choosing to use white as the background as Spiegelman has done throughout the rest of the book, the black adds to the importance of these pages. It symbolizes a time of depression that Artie went through alongside his father. Furthermore, the image of the man crying on page 101 is brilliant. I like how Artie’s tears grow larger as time goes on, as it does in the real life. It helps the audience feel as though they are going through time with Artie and his father.
Ultimately, I think that Spiegelman chose to tell this story using both pictures and words to display his point of view fully. By using both techniques, the audience feels a deeper connection with the characters and is able to see exactly what is taking place in the story. The depiction of the cat and mouse would not have been as significant if it was told only with text. Therefore, the text is only half of the story and without the pictures, the story would be incomplete.
When I first began reading Spiegelman’s Maus, the fact that the story was written as a comic book really surprised me. I found myself having to reread some things to completely understand the story but once you are able to understand it, the story becomes easier to read. It was really different from reading a book with just words because the pictures helped the reader to understand what was happening during Spiegelman’s father’s life. With books with just words, you usually have to create the scene for yourself, but here the picture is showing you everything that’s going on. The fact that he used mice as Jews and cats as Nazis made it easier to read as well because people know that cats prey on mice and as the book shows, the Nazis were always trying to take over the Jews and their businesses. I think Spiegelman chose this way to write his father’s story to make it interesting for people and help for them to see all the trials and tribulations that the people during the Holocaust went through. I also found the comic about his mother’s death very interesting because it showed how he felt when he found out that she killed herself. He even still thinks that it was somewhat his father’s fault even at the end of the novel, when his dad tells him he burned all his mother’s things, he calls him a murderer . He was able to let out all of his feelings while he created this comic and created a vivid picture of how his mother was found: “My father found her when he got home from work… her wrists slashed and an empty bottle of pills nearby.” I think that Maus was the easiest story that we read this semester because it was a graphic novel and helped us to understand the times of the Holocaust.
Reading Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a unique experience for me. It is the first time I have ever read a graphic novel or even picked up a comic book. Before reading Maus, I did not think comic books dealt with serious issues, just merely superheroes saving the damsel in distress or something to that effect. I had to adjust my eyes and read carefully, as not to miss any of the details found in his illustrations. Reading Maus definitely provides my eyes with more to look at, and I have to try to keep my eyes focused on the particular comic square I’m reading, otherwise I end up getting distracted by everything else on the page.
It is different from a novel with just words in that it provides the images for you. As a reader, I do not have to imagine what Spiegelman is describing; I can actually see it printed on the page for me. For me this takes away from one of my favorite elements of reading, imagining what characters look like, visualizing their story myself. That maybe Spiegelman’s objective in telling his father’s memoir in a graphic novel; he wants the reader to see how things actually happened, not for the reader to gloss over horrific details because the Holocaust is something that most people don’t like to think about. However, I do appreciate Spiegelman’s drawings and the unique perspective he gives by telling his father’s story through the medium of a comic book and making the characters personified animals.
One image I found particularly disturbing was the telling of what the Germans did to the young Jewish children they took to Auschwitz that couldn’t stop screaming. If I already didn’t have a gruesome image in my head from reading “The Germans swinged them by the legs against the wall…and they never anymore screamed” (108), the image is there on the page, nothing glamorized, nothing left to the imagination; all the details are there, from the blood splattered on the brick wall to the limp body that is being held lifelessly by the ankle. Even if the reader wanted to block out this image, and usually they could by simply not imagining it, they could not because the image is provided for them. The images give details to the story that may have been forgotten or brushed under the rug otherwise. Spiegelman doesn’t allow the reader to picture their own images, he specifically gives us his.
I think that by telling his father’s story through words and pictures, Spiegelman is making sure his readers are picturing his father’s story exactly the way it happened, or at least exactly the way Spiegelman wants us to picture it. I think it is extremely clever to tell his father’s story through the graphic novel. It is something that makes his father’s story unique when compared to all the other Holocaust stories on the market. It’s not just another Holocaust story; it’s also a comic book. This makes his father’s story more accessible to people and easier to read. Some people maybe more inclined to pick up a comic book than a novel. Also he uses animals to depict people in the novel. The Jews are mice and the Germans are the mice’s natural born enemy, cats. Depicted as such, the Jews, as mice, can be seen as weak and defenseless against the Germans who clearly have power over them. Even though he uses animals to portray people I do not think that this takes away from the severity of the topic. Perhaps he does this to emphasis the point that the Holocaust was inhumane, actions that are not capable of humans but of animals. The graphic novel as used by Spiegelman is very effective and something that differs from other Holocaust stories.
I am new to graphic novels, so I was excited to hear that our final novel would be a stray from the norm. Before reading this novel, I had seen a few movies that had been converted from graphic novels, and didn’t like them very much. One thing I did like however was the cinematography; it seemed as though a comic book was coming alive on the screen. This is probably same reason for why they have become so popular in recent years among avid readers and newcomers alike. Anyway, therefore I was very surprised at how much I liked Maus. The use of animals is such a clever and innovative idea. I suppose this concept was suggested by the popular novel Animal Farm, but Maus takes the idea even further. The imagery and symbolism is so simple yet very effective. The reader can get a clear sense of a character’s race as well as Spiegelman’s view of that race simply by the character’s species. The reader can even use the surface level symbolism to draw conclusions. The Polish pigs, Jewish mice, and German cats have many quick connotations.
One thing I found interesting is when the Jewish characters are impersonating the Polish they tie on the pig masks to assume their persona. When I noticed this fact I began to analyze the significance of the different animals. This aspect causes the reader to more deeply contemplate the role that race played in World War II. Spielgelman shows the attitude Hitler and his following had towards the Jews. They viewed them as animals that they could chase, hunt, and kill. This is expressed in a quote of Hitler at the beginning of the novel where he says “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human”. He describes them as pests in need of extermination, much like how a mouse is viewed when seen crawling across a kitchen floor.
When I began Maus, I thought that the graphic aspect of it would lighten the reality of the events. It seems that the animations would desensitize the reader and make the subject matter a little more comical, but there were many times during reading that I found myself deeply disturbed. This makes a good deal of sense considering that the cold hard facts of what took place are deeply disturbing as well. I think that if there were no pictures the novel would be too hard to read. The images conjured by the imagination of the reader would be much more haunting than those given depicting mice. When the reader learns of yet another horrible thing that the Nazis did, it seems impossible at first. The drawings allow the reader to dwell on the thought for a second, and then move on. This mind-set is much like the attitude that needed to be adopted by the Jews during this time. If they dwelled too long on a certain idea, they would sink into a deeper despair and ultimately give up the fight against the Nazis to survive.
If I had been reading just the words without the pictures, my mind would most certainly have wander, and I feel I would sink into this same depression. It would be hard finish the novel. One of the greatest examples of the evil actions of the Nazis is on page 108 when you learn of how easily the Jewish children were slaughtered upon entering Auschwitz. The German soldiers had no problem with picking up a young child by his small leg, and swinging him like a bat until his head smashed against a wall. This treatment of another human being especially a child did not seem possible to me, but this novel shows you the reality that such evil can exist in the world and how great it was in Hitler. By seeing the next drawing I was able to continue the novel, but yet it stuck with me. Even after I finished the novel, I thought of it and the picture stayed in my mind. The pictures seem to slowly and discreetly seep into the psyche, so the reader ponders the messages of the novel long after they are done reading. This aspect of graphic novels seems to make Maus subtly haunting and even more effective at conveying the gruesome nature of the story of Artie’s father.
"Comic Strip Calamity"
In Maus, Art Spiegelman’s comic book style offers many advantages in recounting his father’s tale of survival through the Holocaust. The most important benefit of using this form of medium is that Spiegelman’s tale will be able to reach a wider audience than a medium of pure text. This also allowed Spiegelman to include symbolism in picture form. For me, the graphic novel is a much smoother read than the other novels we’ve read in class. It may be altogether shorter than some of the other readings we’ve been assigned, but I also move through this type of medium faster because Spiegelman is telling me his story through both pictures and words. He conveys more information in less space. For example, he doesn’t have to bother describing the context of what the characters are saying or the particular inflections they use because the reader can see this on the faces of the mice, in the thickness of the words, and in the shapes of the speech bubbles.
The fact that Spiegelman’s story will have a broader appeal than a language-dependent biography is actually pointed out in the story, by Spiegelman, on page 133. While the story is in the present-tense, Art, Mala, and Vladek are chatting in Vladek’s kitchen about the graphic novel that Art is putting together. Mala says: “It’s an important book. People who don’t usually read such stories will be interested”. Vladek adds: “Yes. I don’t read ever such comics, and even I am interested”. “It should be very successful”, Mala continues. Clearly, Art was in tune with the fact that his idea to tell a Holocuast story through a comic book would be a ground-breaking feat. Young people who don’t usually read about the holocaust, but like comics will gravitate to it. Older audiences who don’t normally read comics, like Vladek, will also enjoy it.
If Art had used human drawings in Maus, the work would still have been exceptionally innovative. However, he chose to tell his father’s story by changing human characters into different animals, depending on their ethnicity. The symbolism of this method is obvious. The Jews, preyed upon by the German cats, are portrayed as mice. Americans, who intervened for the Jewish people to overthrow the Nazi cats, are dogs. The interesting thing about this tale and the involvement of animal imagery is that Art told his father’s story so as to be as human as possible. Art spells this out on page 23, towards the beginning of the story, when he tells his father that he wants to include all of Vladek’s personal details because “it makes everything more real - more human”. Another, more subtle benefit of portraying his characters as animals is that he didn’t have to put as much detail into their appearances. For such a long comic book, this probably made the novel much faster and easier to complete. For the story that Art Spiegelman is telling, individual appearance is mostly irrelevant. He only really needed to distinguish between the different ethnic groups involved. An excellent example of visual symbolism is on page 136. Vladek is describing how he and Anja would walk around pretending to be Polish in order to avoid capture. Their mice characters wear Polish pig masks to blend in, but Vladek admits that Anja had a harder time than he, saying: “her appearance – you could see more easy she was Jewish”. To symbolize this, Anja’s character is seen as having a long mouse tail that trails behind her, an unmistakable sign that she cannot hide, indicating that she is a Jew.
Maus has an interesting tendency to cause the reader to feel separated from the events. It is easy to forget that this tragedy involved real people in the 1940s and not mice. Perhaps Art is alluding to the surreal nature of the Holocaust to those of us that were not there to witness it. It is so difficult to put oneself in a Holocaust-survivor’s shoes. As we learn about these events decades later, we can’t fathom a way to relate to the people who really lived through it. There are some who have such a hard time relating that they deny the event altogether, believing rather that the Holocaust is a massive historic hoax.
Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer prize for Fiction in 1992 for Maus. This is a well-deserved award for this imaginative biography. The way that the story unravels, we can see how the Nazis slowly and methodically tightened their stranglehold over the Jewish people. Through the easily manageable medium of comic art, Spiegelman’s readers can vastly increase their understanding of what really happened to Jews from the early, subtle warning signs to the full-blown genocide we now refer to as “the holocaust”. Spiegelman has a unique gift of expressing a complex story of gradual deception and immense evil in a way that any person can relate to.
In Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, I endured a very different reading experience than I am used to. It took me quite some time to get used to the way the novel was set up, but overall it made for an easier read than most of the novels this semester. Such a strong story line does not usually permit one to write in “comic strip” form. Spiegelman’s use of illustration makes for a much stronger novel in my opinion, not only because of the imagery, but also because the format is a strength of his.
The illustrations in the story at first took some getting used to. I caught myself many times just reading the words and skipping over the pictures without even looking at them. Of course, I always found myself going back and looking them over, and they did provide a certain element to the words. I think with this kind of story, you can only read so much. The words just become one big mass that you are reading over without actually understanding the magnitude. I know personally, that when dealing with the holocaust, someone can always spit out numbers and facts, but until I see pictures, it is almost hard to comprehend or believe. Pictures always drive the point home for me, and without these pictures it would probably just have been another Holocaust story that got you a little sad but didn’t quite place you in anybodies shoes. I think that is one huge thing that worked for me within the story; Spiegelman put you in his fathers shoes, or even his own. The story became more than just another survivor’s tail, it became personal.
One passage that really spoke to me was this, “That Spring, one day, the Germans took from Srodula to Auschwitz over 1,000 people. Most they took were kids-some only 2 or 3 years. Some kids were screaming and screaming. They couldn’t stop. So the Germans swinged them by the legs against a wall…And they never anymore screamed”. This passage was the most vivid for me due to the illustration. When I read this I kind of skimmed over it at first, in my mind thinking that no human could possibly do that to someone, especially a child. I supposed I just thought I may have read it wrong or something to that extent, but I couldn’t deny it when I saw the picture. The picture just sent home exactly what happened without question, and really got that part of the story stuck in my mind. The imagery he used was powerful to me in this part because it most definitely cleared up a possible confusion.
I think Spiegelman chose to tell his father’s story in this way because graphics were what he knew best. He wanted to depict his father as accurate as possible, and do his story justice. In making it a graphic novel, it enabled him to do it his way, with no doubt as to what he was trying to get across in his mind. Perhaps had he left out the pictures, he may have felt that readers might not have understood exactly who is father was, or anything about the environment in which it takes place. Using a format he understood completely, allowed us as readers understand him and his story completely.
I would have to say that I very much enjoy the way this story is told and how it is illustrated. When I was younger I used to read the comics in the newspaper, and even reaized that the stories were very elemntary and simple, yet witty and artistic. This story is, however, very deep and important and is told on a much lighter note in the comic form. I would have been interested in this type of story even if it was not told in this way, but had it been just words and told in a much more traditional manner, I would have lost interest quickly. The comic form kepy m interested and even the illustrations helped my focus stay in key. I did not put this book down once, an I almost even picked up the second on to start reading. I have always been very intereted in the Hitler era of WWII, and hav studied facts, etc. But I like this story line. It reminds me of the Titanic in a way. There was this whole historic factual account of the Titanic and how it sank, and the movie told a small storyline of what could have happened during all the true facts, even though I know this story is true.
One passage that I thought was particulary important regarding regarding the graphics of this story is on pag 110. I like how we can actually see how his father's bunker was actually made and how it was situated and located. Another specific passage that I liked is on page 132-133. This is a simple passage that Artie shows his father what he has so far for his story. He shows and tells him of parts in the comic that we have alrady read. I like how he is pretty much telling the story along with what is actually going on.
I think he tells this story in this way for a few reasons. One, I think h simply wants to show his talent for writing a comic. It i outof the ordinary, and keeps a person interested. It gives a person a new outlook of somthing normally thought of as simple and uneducated. Also, He used different animals to help the reader distinguish btween who people were.
Furthermore, I obviously liked the way Spiegleman told his father's story. Again, I did not put the first book down, and I suspect I will do he same with the second volume.
Images and Words
I find it hard to believe that some people do not imagine the scene as they read books. When I read, I like to recreate a visual image for the words that I scan on the page, and until a few months ago, I assumed that everyone else did the same thing. Apparently, though, some people forego this step in order to “read faster.” I think it’s interesting, now, that Spiegelman supplies the corresponding images for the reader with his story. Thusly, the choices he makes regarding these images are just as important as the written word. In other words, the images that Spiegelman chooses to illustrate reinforce the mood or meaning of the written story.
It’s hard to choose a specific passage of the graphic novel to justify this claim. Rather, the entire work as a whole reinforces the story. Instead of particular uses of the “comic-book” form, the artistic choices Spiegelman makes create a cumulative effect upon the reader. However, within just this first half of the story, there are very interesting images that Spiegelman creates that I’d like to point out before addressing a specific passage.
Firstly, on page 12, the use of panel shape and placement creates a larger picture of Vladek cycling. On page 83, we see a continuation of the drawing throughout the panels, from the hanging bodies to the feet beneath. Finally, on page 125, the path that Vladek and Anja find themselves upon when finally released is in the shape of a swastika. Together, they don’t amount to much, but I really liked their use in those instances, and they do a very good job either invoking a particular emotion, or reinforcing the story. For example, the swastika path tells us without words that, even though they are now “free,” they are still lost or stuck within a Poland rooted with Nazism.
Looking at specific passages of the novel, though, we can see many bold artistic choices within the comic-within-a-comic, “Prisoner on the Hell Planet.” The story tells us of Artie’s feelings around the time of his mother’s suicide. The story he tells is one of much confusion, depression, and deterioration of the mind. Appropriately, the style of art used reflects this unique state of mind for Spiegelman. First, the outfit he wears is a prisoner’s, reminiscent even of what a one would have worn in a concentration camp. Second, the dark nature of most of the panels reflect the subject matter at hand. And lastly, the skewed angles and disordered objects do a great job of portraying the mind of a man just out of a mental institution, into a house dealing with the suicide of his mother.
Lastly, I want to talk about Spiegelman’s choice of Mice. This is one of the most interesting facets of the graphic novel. The use of mice can fuel endless conversations upon this work, and the amazing thing is that Spiegelman doesn’t spare one word to address this issue. I can find two reasons why Spiegelman made this artistic choice. First, for pure aesthetics. By changing the Jews of his story to mice, it makes it easier for the reader to cope with the situation as well as discuss the deeper issues at hand. If this comic were done with humans, readers would find it much more difficult to discuss important issues that Spiegelman addresses, not to mention more difficult to even read this “graphic” (no pun intended) novel about the brutal treatment of Jews during World War II, as we’ll see in Volume 2. Secondly, it creates a dichotomy between the Jewish and Nazi mindsets of the period. There are two ways to look at the situation: the Nazis saw sharp delineations between race. Hitler’s epigraph at the beginning of the novel sum this up perfectly, “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.” In effect, Nazis saw Jews not as despicable humans, but as a completely different species altogether. Conversely, the Jewish mindset of the time is also reinforced in Spiegelman’s decision: Jews were helpless. As we can see within the book, Jews never truly grasped the impending danger, and when they did, they did nothing about it. In this sense, we can even debate on whether or not Spiegelman is labeling the Jews as cowards.
The accompanying images of this novel make it very interesting to read. No longer are we purely dissecting words, but interpreting meanings from their images as well.
I have never been an avid book reader, but if I had a choice to read anything, I would prefer that the material contained images or pictures. This makes reading for me, personally, much easier because I could spend less time trying to imagine the way environments appear and spend more time getting to the point/meat of the story. In my opinion, this is what Art Spiegelman accomplished with writing Maus in comic book form. I was able to read through the content of the story much faster with the images; I read the first volume in a couple of hours, which is good for a slow reader such as my self. The images made the read more appealing and it was able to hold my attention, more than a book with just strictly words. I thought the depiction of Jews as mice was ingenious. At the time of WWII, Jews were looked upon as the lowest form of human beings in the eyes of Germans (cats), and people often look at mice as one of the lowest form of animals. And then there were the oppressors or cats that could destroy the mice at their will. The Germans looked upon themselves as being superior to Jewish people, much like a cat being superior to a mouse.
The passage that caught my attention was when the Germans were transporting people from Srodula to Auschwitz, and most of the people they took at the time were kids. On pg. 108, it stated that the kids were only two or three years old, and they screamed so much that the Germans slammed them against the wall to shut them up, and as a result killed them. Even though the picture on pg. 108 depicting the incident is striking, it still doesn’t compare to what those people had to go through or witness for that time. After reading this passage, I had to shake my head in sorrow. It definitely puts things in perspective, and reading this story among other things is the reason why I take nothing in my life for granted. In my opinion, nothing can justify killing a child for anyone’s interest. But putting this incident along with others in a comic book form made the read bearable. I wouldn’t want to read a story like this that pictured the real images of what happened in Auschwitz; images such as those could haunt people. I think this is why Art Spiegelman decided to write a story about the Holocaust and life afterwards in this way. Personally, I take the story and the Holocaust seriously, but I’m not as emotionally attached to it except for the incident with the children.
Since Art Spiegelman didn’t experience the Holocaust first hand, I don’t think he could’ve described the environments that well with words. Thus, he capitalized on his father’s vivid memories to paint a picture of the environments and brutality that occurred during the Holocaust. Maus definitely has a serious tone throughout the book, but using animals instead of people made story much more appealing and manageable to read. Nonetheless, the images make the story more realistic and easy to visualize. For instance, the picture of the bunker showed Vladek’s creativity and the hard work it took to create such a place for his family to hide. When I first saw the picture, I instantly thought about how long it probably took to construct the bunker and the imagination of using the coal so the dogs couldn’t sniff them out. This, among other things Vladek did during that time, showed Vladek’s willingness to survive.
Of course the Holocaust was the main topic in the story, however, in my opinion, Art Spiegelman also wrote the story for his dad and how much he admired him, even though there was a constant disconnect between the two. He might not have liked his father’s company, but he definitely loved and respected the man for what he accomplished in life. I definitely believe Vladek came full circle, and he definitely understood the meaning of life. I never thought Vladek was stingy after the Holocaust; he definitely understood the difference between needs and wants. For instance, when Art was a kid he was reluctant to buy Art new clothes because he knew they weren’t needed. Or when Vladek picked up the telephone wire that was in the trash, yet he found utility in something so small. Vladek was also very cunning and witty throughout the Holocaust. He always networked with people, even with the Germans, and as a result it enabled him to be more privileged than others. Vladek definitely made the best out of every situation, and I think this is what Art Speigelman also tried to convey to the readers when he wrote Maus. Most people, especially Americans, take for granted all their privileges, rights, and belongings everyday. We never think that this could be taken away in a blink of an eye, yet it’s very possible. This world is not forgiving, so when you get down on yourself or if you had a bad day, look at this way, there’s somebody out there that’s living in conditions much worse than yours that will never have the opportunities that have been given to us. Think about it!
Spiegelman’s creativity and originality in Maus I definitely won me over. Before reading this novel, I never would have even thought to compare the somewhat simple relationship between a cat and mouse to the serious and historical relationship between the Nazis and Jews. It was clever because rats are often viewed as aggravating little rodents; a burden to everyone else, and this is how the Jews were seen. Friends turned on friends if they were Jews, and Jews were seen as outcasts; “lepers”. Also, a cat is the trained by its “owner” to hunt, catch, and kill the rats. The Nazis were trained by Hitler to track down all the “rats”, capture them, and put them in concentration camps. I think Spiegelman’s use of imagery allows the reader to more thoroughly understand what the Jews, more specifically Art’s father, and his family experienced. The pictures helped me to more clearly understand the story. Although the pictures were detailed, yet not gruesome or grueling, they go along with the common cliché, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
I think the imagery is most powerful when Art expresses his pain and mourn through a comic after his mother’s suicide. It shows that he party blames himself, but more so his father, hence why he calls him a “murderer”. The subject of her suicide is scattered throughout the novel which I think makes it a little more connected and lets us realize how often Art thought about his mother and longed for her. I don’t think that Art believes his father killed his mother, but instead the memory of her. We see a hint of this when Art becomes infuriated with his father for throwing away his mother’s diaries. One “physical” thing he had left of her.
Spiegelman chose to tell the story this way, in my opinion, because this is how he heard it. He experienced the story as a child, through a child’s eyes, so he wanted the audience to see it through his eyes; not as he is now, but as he was when told the story. His use of imagery backs this theory because we often see pictures in children’s books, but not in adult reading books. The pictures demonstrate what he remembered as a child and imagined as he heard the story. I think that it was a genius idea to tell of a Holocaust in a lighter way, as a comic. Of course, the Holocaust is not a light subject, but as a comic it was much easier to read, and understand. In many novels, including some we’ve read this year, we are set to find what the author wanted us to think, see, etc. But here, it is given to us. We see what Spiegelman wants us to think.
Pictures and Understanding
Spiegelman’s choice to use pictures and words for this story was a good choice. Many times, readers are disappointed by illustrations, because they are always more happy with the picture their own imagination drew. Other times, however, drawing pictures is the only way to truly understand how something happened.
The Jewish Holocaust is one of the most awful things that has happened in our world. What exactly happened to the Jews during this time is very foreign to most citizens of the United States. We are often sheltered by the great country we live in. Because of this, if Spiegelman only used words to tell this tale, we would still not fully understand the full extent to how the Jews were tortured in this time. Of course, all his pictures consist of mice. This may have been done to soften the pictures so that even young children can read his story and understand. Spiegelman knows what happened, and he wants to make it clear to the sheltered citizens of the United States and the rest of the world.
Apart from this, I like the use of both pictures and words simply for the feeling of change it gives to its readers. Everyone is so used to opening a book and seeing lots of pages with words, that opening a book and seeing pages and pages of pictures and written dialogue gives a little pleasant surprise. The use of this greatly increased my reading speed. I get so caught up in every word that I read, that I read very slowly. With the device of using both pictures and words, I was able to fly through the book. I still understood everything Spiegelman was trying to say, even better than I would have if the book had just been pages and pages of words.
On pages 46-47, Artie’s father is telling him about how his father starved him and made him unhealthy so that he wouldn’t be chosen to fight in the army after his examination. Most people in the United States have more than enough food, and many people even use the phrase, “I’m starving!” when they feel hungry. The fact that they use this phrase proves that they have no idea what real starvation is like, and what it does to a person’s appearance. Therefore, Spiegelman draws a mouse with a human form who is starving and suffering from severe lack of sleep.
Often times, however, reading a book written this way can people into lazy readers. Because much of the action is drawn out on the paper, the reader’s mind is much more relaxed than if he/she were reading a book with words. Of course, the picture do take away from I would be imagining in my own head through the words, but again, in this case, the pictures add to the reader’s understand rather than take away.
Art Spiegleman’s decision to tell a tragic story of the holocaust in graphic novel form has been the source of much controversy. Having attended the discussion on the novel held at the Hill Memorial Library earlier in the semester, I for one can tell you that his use of animalistic characters has been greatly researched and often misunderstood by the American public. I enjoyed reading a graphic novel for a change of pace and it maintained every bit, if not more, of the emotions and hardships experienced in such novels as The Diary of Anne Frank anc I Will Plant you a Lilac Tree.
Art's use of mice, pigs, and wolves to demonstrate the different social classes/races in Maus was ingenious. The pictures, along with graphic dialogue, made the first half of this epic easy to understand and read. It was definitely a page turner, and I was able to finish it in one sitting.
One particular affecting passage that demonstrated the struggle between Artie and his father was when he was being starved, or conditioned, to be rejected by the army after his examination. What sort of loving father would do such a thing? On the other hand, maybe his father cared so much about him that he couldn't bare to see his son fight or die.
The use of images is the thing that I enjoy most about this book. The comic book format helps to bring the novel to life as well as keep your attention focused on what you are reading. By helping the reader better understand the events that take place, the use of images makes this book an easier and quicker read. The images show you what Spiegelman is trying to say instead of relying on words alone to give you the same picture. Spiegelman’s comic "On the Hell Planet" really brings to life the way his mother died. Without this, he would have simply been telling a story. With the images, however, the reader is allowed to see emotions and vizualize the pain that Spiegelman was going through. The imagery shows the reader that he feels remorse about what happened. It would have been much more difficult to project the emotions that Spiegelman was feeling by using ismply words. I think that the story of Spiegelman's father is a great one, and I think that Speigelman knew that words alone would not suffice to give a reader an idea of what really happened.
Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a graphic novel that presents an unusual reading experience compared to a traditional novel. The strong images in this novel paired with the simple dialog provide the reader with a vivid picture of Germany around 1938. The reader is given not only text but pictures to follow which make it easy to envision the events contained in the story. At the same time, Maus may be more unsettling than the same story told in a traditional format because the horrific details are depicted simultaneously by word and picture. The reading is not necessarily faster; the reader must digest the pictures in conjunction with the words in order to grasp the emotions behind the dialog. Instead of reading this graphic novel in a brisk flowing fashion, I tend to read it slowly while paying great attention to the illustrations. Although there are many passages that exemplify the terrifying times the Jews faced, there is one particular passage that stands out in my mind.
On page 83 of Maus, Anja’s father is distraught when he returns home, and she asks why he is upset. Her father tells her about four Jews who were hanged for “dealing goods without coupons.” Anja’s husband, Vladek, is also alarmed because he did business with the men who were killed. In the main picture of the passage, there are four Jews, drawn as mice, hanging while a crowd of Jews gaze with their heads down, and one German guard, a cat, watches over the bodies. The German cat’s face is indistinct signifying his indifference . Because Maus is a graphic novel, these pictures heighten the reader’s response to such a heartrending tragedy. In a traditional novel, the reader would conceive how terrible it is for someone to be hanged, but in a graphic novel, the reader literally sees the hanging take place on the page. This particular depiction is striking because it shows the Jews’ sorrowful reactions to the hanging and the lack of reaction from the German. The imagery of the mouse dangling from the rope while the cat nonchalantly stands nearby makes the reader queasy. Through the graphic novel, specific events that occurred during this time are told with great effect, evoking empathy from the reader.
There could be many reasons Spiegelman chose to write Maus in the form of a graphic novel. For one, I do not believe Spiegelman wants the reader to have the ability to create his or her own images. He insists the reader see exactly what he pictured when he heard his father’s story. Some could possibly say that this is not Spiegelman’s story but his father’s, and these pictures are Spiegelman’s way of adding his perception of the events. Spiegelman, using illustrations as well as dialog, may have desired for his depiction of the World War II events to appeal to a wider audience so he could inform more people of the circumstances surrounding the Halocaust. Using cartoon illustrations to tell the story might make it easier for the reader to stomach. On the other hand, Spiegelman may have simply thought the illustrations would give a more vivid picture –the grotesque images leap at the reader from the page. Finally, Spiegelman may have chosen the graphic novel form because it enabled him to show the relationship between Jews and Germans with unmistakable clarity. The Germans are cats and the Jews are mice. The Jews are simply objects that the Germans toy with until they feel it is time to kill them; the Jews are prey and the Germans are predators. The Germans never treat the Jews as human.
I can see why Spiegelman chose to illustrate his father’s story through a graphic novel. This gave him the ability to show the reader exactly what happened many years ago. After reading Maus, it is difficult for me to picture this novel in any other form. I can grasp the Jews’ experience in World War II Nazi Germany from the shocking images that will haunt me long after the book is finished.
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