Maus (6 points)

 I liked Maus quite a bit. An aspect that really stuck out to me was the personal and honest quality of the story telling. The comic is told as a retelling to Spiegelman from Vladek, Spiegelman’s father, about his past for Spiegleman’s book. It cuts between the present day, 1978 Rego Park, and the father's account of his experience during World War II in Poland. I think the fact Spiegelman chose to weave these two timelines together made it feel more personal and authentic. It puts the reader in the shoes of Spiegelman as he hears his father talk about his personal story. It reminded me a lot of how my dad or mom talks about their past and how they came to the US from Vietnam during the war. They would stop and go on meandering tangents in the middle of their retelling, like Vladek does about his glass eye, his pills, or to complain about Mala. I think this is relatable to most readers, Vladek feels like a real parent. Like when he throws away Spiegelman’s jacket because it looked old, that something my mom would do for sure. Spiegel is pretty self aware/ meta about this authentic quality in making the comic like in the beginning when the father recounts the women he was involved with before he met Anja, Spiegelman’s mom. The father says “I don’t want you to write about this in your book… It has nothing to do with Hitler with the Holocaust!” and Spiegleman replies that “it makes everything more real-more human.” (p.21) I agree with Spiegleman. In this retelling, the reader gets a real sense of Vladek as an actual person with flaws and traumas bred from his horrible experiences. It becomes as much of a story of a man trying to connect to and understand his father and understand his mother’s suicide, as well as a retelling of the horrors of war. 

I think another interesting decision is of course, Spiegelman’s choice to use animals instead of humans and race. I think it works because it makes the harsh tale more accessible to the reader by simplifying them to anthropomorphized animals and it fits the historical context of WWII. It fits the historical context by separating human races into animal races, as WWII was a conflict based on race. The Jews are mice, the Polish are pigs, the French were frogs, and the Nazis are cats. This plays into the idea that race made you either a human or lesser- drawing clear lines in the sand between everyone.The mice were no cat, and they were seen as vermin; just as the Jews were in WWII by the Nazis. I thought it was also interesting how Vladek was shown to be wearing a pig mask to convince the train conductor, a Pole,to cross over the border to his family.


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