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.
