Friday, February 13, 2015
Spiegelman's "Maus"
Art Spiegelman creates a new way of storytelling in his graphic novel Maus. Throughout this novel, Spiegelman visually tells the story of his father's experience in the Holocaust. What makes this way interesting is that instead of generally telling these experiences with people, he symbolizes each race group with a specific animal. Jews are mice, Germans are cats, and the Polish are pigs - it's a clever play on stereotypes as well as the cliche relationship between cats and mice. These representation create a better understanding of the relationships between the different race groups during the 1940s. While this story is a graphic novel, it can also be classified as a memoir. However, the approach on this is really interesting because the son is telling the story about his father's experiences. This gives a different kind of perspective and a more direct perspective of what happened during the Holocaust rather than a researcher's perspective.
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I love how Art uses the different animals to represent the differences between people groups. I especially appreciate the cat Nazis and the mice Jews. Cats are cunning and sneaky and intelligent. They are superior to mice and it's in their nature to devour them. Mice are resourceful, quick, and can out wit many other animals. I think that the animal character types really play into the dynamics between Jews, Poles, and Nazis.
ReplyDeleteI also thought using the animals was clever. It gave outsiders the survivors a clear cut comparison of his thoughts on the relationship between the Jews and Germans. The pictures created extra details throughout the book, which helped the reader to truly delve into Spiegelman's perspective.
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