Hanexi Pérez
Professor Cynthia Pittmann
ENGL 3103-138
May 24, 2018

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman

After reading the graphic story title “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” by Art Spiegelman, I could say that it is a really interesting literary production, which captivates the reader's attention by presenting the experiences lived by a Jewish in the Holocaust period. The story presented in a graphic style went since the younger years of Spiegelman’s father through many stages of his life like the engagement, prewar period or the marriage during the German domain and how he deals to survive with his family. Vladek Spiegelman had to take tough decisions and sacrifices for the goodness of his family hoping for a better wellness in each one of the situations. It also showed the post effects of all those hard years of constant persecution and instability suffered by Spiegelman’s father. 

The graphics of the story are so worthy to understand and visualize the circumstances of the moment, which are a very unpleasant ones. The images used to illustrate the story are perfectly related to the text since the employment of black and white colors to a simple drawing technique. The utilization of black and white method fits perfect to represent the darkness and difficulty of the moment, the time in which the story occurs, the pain and segregation suffered by a sector of the society and makes it easier for the imagination of all the success. The simplicity of the drawings is another detail that is absolutely related to the text because both of them are truly understandable and appreciable to any reader, which makes this graphic story an easy one to comprehend and interpret. Another aspect of the graphics of Maus is their size and gutter, there is a great flexibility on the application of the gutters to administrates the images and their sizes in the graphic story. Even though the gutters change constantly during the whole story, they are well organized with the text, allowing the reader to enjoy the masterpiece without complications.

There are some aspects of this graphic story that are quite interesting to many readers who are observant and alert. The whole story is composed by animal faces with the purpose of portray different nationalities and races. It is also funcional to represent all the people that were mentioned by Spiegelman’s father during the story telling that the author never saw. Every sector of the society has their own animal face. The Jews are reveal like mice, no matter their origins, there were the most susceptible animals during the entire story inasmuch as they have to refugee in small places or bunkers to hide from getting chased by the Nazis. They are seemed like a type of pest or something that the people often to exterminate. Being the cat the natural hunter of the mice, the Germans were showed as cats. The analogy of the cat and the mice match perfectly with the historic event between Nazis and Jews. Another community was part of the story, they were the Polish. The Polish were depicted as pigs, they were the ones able to give the better witness existing of this horrified event. The pigs were also dominated by the Nazis, but they weren’t chased or abused by them, they can stay in their houses working and have a normal life under the rules of the Nazi domain. 

One of the most interesting aspects of this graphic story are the themes presented. The impact of the war it is introduced since the beginning of the story with the strong character of his father. Vladek Spiegelman still having many habits and ideas that he obtains from all those hard years of war. He hoards many things that weren’t so useful or necessary just to be prepared in case that any tragedy occurs again. The old man had sufficient money secured in the bank and no one have access to it, even his actual wife. Vladek had turn into a kind of selfish and grumpy man like consequence of his experiences. Another one who suffered so much the impact of the war was Spiegelman’ s mother, Anja. She had emotional problems before the war began, but the war events magnified her unhappiness even more. In addition, she lost her family and her first son, Richie, all this reason is the justification to her decision of taking her own life.  The morality is another theme presented in this story, in the middle of all the pain, persecution and suffer Vladek had to appeal to many people to ask for help or housing. In war times nobody will risk their own security to help other ones, even your own family wouldn’t do it. Help people that are being hunted could cost your freedom or even your life. The few ones that took  the risk did it only for money, like Mrs. Kawka and Mrs. Motonowa do it for Vladek and Anja giving them a place to hide from the Germans. 

Finally, I think that this graphic story is an excellent way to learn and complement the history between the Jews and the Nazis, which could be a little bit unpleasant and uncomfortable for many people who felt disgusted and sad with this event. I think that this graphic story is a brilliant idea to explain the success with an alternative modality and with a good illustration of the concepts related to the Holocaust, like it was the idea of the animal faces. This graphic story must be very useful to those who didn’t have the age to comprehend the complexity of the historic events, presenting them the same incidents and concepts with elemental images and the anecdotes of someone who live this hell. Other thing that makes this graphic story so cool is the constant change of moments between the anecdotes and experiences of Vladek, and the moments between Spiegelman and his father in the present of the story. That fact facilitates the reader the comprehension and invite him to imagine it like it was him the one who is hearing that kind of story from his dad.