#MAUS GRAPHIC NOVEL HOW TO#

This classification is the basis of Spiegelman’s Maus: there are three main groups of animals depicted in the book.

Evidently, the Nazis’ role in this chain is the perpetrator’s one. As Kolář remarks, with the help of animal imagery, one can examine and exemplify the connections between “perpetrators, bystanders, and victims” during the Holocaust (87). Both the allegorical and metaphorical meanings of animalistic features enable authors to emphasize the similarities between humans and animals and explain people’s behavior during the war. The use of animals to depict such a serious theme as the Holocaust is not rare in American writers’ legacy (Kolář 87). The author employs allegory to exemplify how some human races consider themselves as more worthy than others, and by using power, subjugate and eradicate the weak. Therefore, the use of animals in Spiegelman’s novel is similar to the Nazi belief of Jews being a needless and powerless nation.

#MAUS GRAPHIC NOVEL HOW TO#

However, Jews were quiet as mice: they did not make loud protests and did not know how to protect themselves against those unjustified accusations. In 1912, there was a declaration of a program “for the complete expulsion of the Jews from German public life,” and the Association Against Jewish Arrogance was established (Friedländer 75). They did not express any strong opposition toward the political and social constraints that were imposed on them. When at the beginning of the 20th century, Jews started to feel oppressed, they “reacted, but only meekly” (Friedländer 74). The most they can do is run away and hide in holes until the danger is out of their way. Such thoughts had no grounds, but German authorities initiated the politics of removing Jews from important positions and worsening their lives in general.Īnother point explaining the use of mice for representing Jews in Spiegelman’s Maus is that these animals are rather weak and small, and they can do nothing to protect themselves. Erich Ludendorff, was that Jews had acquired too much dominance in the economic sphere, which led to their enrichment “at the expense of the German people” (qtd. Nearly every clerk was a Jew and nearly every Jew was a clerk” (qtd. He noted that “the offices were filled with Jews. In Mein Kampf, Hitler described Jews as troublesome and unnecessary as mice. Spiegelman’s novel resembles the Nazi belief that some populations can be ranked as higher or lower on the chain of being. However, the fact is that these people were not viewed as worth working in the most important spheres and regarded as equal to Germans (Friedländer 74). There is no logical explanation of such thoughts, as well as of actions taken against Jews in pre-war Germany. The tragedy of the Holocaust was grounded in Hitler’s idea about the exceptional value of the German nation and utter contempt for Jews. The Nazi Opinion About Different Populations’ Worth In Spiegelman’s Maus, the animal imagery reproduces a racial logic of the Nazi regime by representing Jews as mice, the lowest creatures on the chain of being. Analyzing the graphic novel through the prism of animal symbolism allows understanding the relationships between different nations during the war. Meanwhile, Poles are pictured as pigs, and Nazis – as cats. The writer chooses these animals to represent the Nazi’s attitude toward Jews: the former considered the latter as absolutely useless and disturbing. It is typical to think of mice as small, weak, insignificant creatures that are also highly annoying. More than that, he employs allegoric images to demonstrate the unfair treatment of this race by Germans. Not only does the author depict the horrors that Jews had to suffer during World War II because Hitler did not consider them “human” (Spiegelman 3).

For another thing, the characters in this comic are not pictured as humans but as animals. For one thing, it is a story of one of the most tragic episodes in human history told by means of a comic. Spiegelman’s Maus is an exceptional literary work due to several aspects. Postcolonial traumas: memory, narrative, resistance, 83-96.Learn more Animal Imagery in Maus: Introduction The postcolonial graphic novel and trauma: From Maus to Malta. Historia de un sobreviviente: Y aquí comenzaron mis problemas. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 22(4), 1-13. The religious meaning of Art Spiegelman's Maus. Of Maus and memory: the structure of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel of the Holocaust. Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman's Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers. The Holocaust as Vicarious Past: Art Spiegelman's' Maus' and the Afterimages of History. ' We Were Talking Jewish': Art Spiegelman's' Maus' as' Holocaust' Production.

Maus graphic novel