Writers often tell two stories when writing one. It’s natural habit. Often there is an ulterior motive when writers use such a technique but, sometimes, there is not. This “two-story telling,” without any ulterior motive takes place in “Maus” by Art Spiegelman where Vladek, Art’s father, recounts the story of the ghastly holocaust and how this relationship effects both of them. Even though Spiegelman doesn’t outright say that the story is also about his relationship with his father, it is…
Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus is a story about the survival of Spiegelman's father, Vladek, during The Holocaust and World War II. The novel both demonstrates the thrifty ways Vladek survived but also the problematic relationship between father and son. Spiegelman uses an abundance of literary devices to convey the story in an interesting and unique manner. He uses devices such as animalisation of people and bold visual imagery to emphasise the story in a distinctive and clear way. One of…
Testimony for Prevention in Maus The graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman is a unique running testimony about the horrors of the Holocaust. This novel uses sequential art to lay out two separate testimonies--Art obtaining his father's experiences of being a Holocaust survivor, and the story of Art’s father as a Polish Jew living through the war. These two testimonies are then intertwined and written in real time. This lets the reader to truly witness two separate testimonies at once. The…
Among the plethora of holocaust and post memory works and creations, MAUS is a graphic memoir novel based on a true story of the author of the book Art Spiegelman’s typed oral conversation interview with his father Vladek Spiegelman. Maus documents His family's' experience as Polish Jews during the Holocaust and the complex relationship between the father and son. And Art Spiegelman also address his traumatic memory of second generation survivors. Spiegelman uses animals faces and masks, human…
Holocaust in his graphic novel, Maus. In the beginning of the Book II of Maus, Spiegelman introduces the aftermath of the critical and commercial success of his graphic novel, as well as personal events that occurred after the publication of Book I (Spiegelman, 201). In the opening panels of Auschwitz: Time Flies, the perspective and portrayal of cartoon Art Spiegelman serve to emphasize Spiegelman’s guilty conscience induced by the success of his graphic novel Maus. Spiegelman’s depiction of…
Art Spiegelman is the author of Maus one and Maus two. Spiegelman’s books are the story of his father’s holocaust experience. The unique perspective of Maus is that it is told in the form of post memory. Post memory is the second generation telling the memories of the survivor generation. Spiegelman is a second generation witness and tells the story of his father who is part of the survivor generation. Second generation is extremely important because they are the ones who keep these memories…
A common recurring theme in Maus written by Art Spiegelman is warfare. Maus is presented from the perspective of Polish Jews who were imprisoned by the Nazi in concentration camps. Throughout the book, a common occurrence is the bloodshed and violence that is generally associated with war, for example; on many occasions, Vladek Spiegelman describes to his son, Art, how life was in the concentration camps where they were forced into a life of brutal physical labor and how the infamous gas…
In Art Spiegelman’s survivor tale “Maus”, he uses an interesting setting and point of view to spark the interest of his readers. Spiegelman sets the story in Poland where we as the readers see the story unfold from two different points of view: one being the first person narrator, the other being another first person narrator. Spiegelman’s usage of these two narrators helps develop the story into something more significant that what the overall plot appears to be. For this response paper, I will…
Art Speigelman’s Maus is a graphic novel that clearly displays the appalling treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust. Throughout the novel it becomes clear that the text is not just about experiencing the Holocaust but surviving its impact. It can be easily seen that the effects of the war are long lasting and Vladek was undeniably traumatised by the ordeal. Despite physically surviving the war, in some ways Vladek did not survive. The Holocaust also impacted Art, even though he did not…
I opted to continue reading Art Spiegelman’s Maus this week, on the strength of a belief that it makes for an excellent case study as far as tonality goes. Tales’ temperatures can get taken through their tones getting studied. Tones can range from hopefulness to cynicism to playfulness and everything between. Tonality in Maus changes with each vocal shift from Vladek to Art. But, for the most part, tonality in Maus befits the solemnity inherent within each thematic element this story has. Each…