The Symbol of the Mouse

The use of animals as symbols for nationality is something which Maus has been hugely praised for. There are various reasons for this, two of which will be explored in this blog post: firstly, the artist’s assigning of mice to the role of the Jewish people is often considered a kind of reclamation of sinister Nazi propaganda at the time of the Holocaust, and secondly, the choice of animal for each nationality act as metaphors for perceptions of that nation’s or social group’s role during the second world war.

It’s a relatively well-known fact that much Nazi propaganda in the 1940s painted the Jewish community as a kind of vermin; artwork and the written word alike characterised Jews as rats and mice in order to spread the idea of them being a dirty, plague-like race in need of extermination, which of course ties in disturbingly with their later slaughter and imprisonment in concentration camps. In Maus, Art Spiegelman anthropomorphises Jews as mice in a very intentional manner – they are not rats, but something smaller, more delicate, and much less capable of defending themselves. The fact that the Nazi members are depicted as cats further emphasises this suggested vulnerability, and the Americans being represented by dogs completes the totem-pole of power, essentially putting the Jews at the bottom of the proverbial food-chain through no fault of their own. Thus, the creator of Maus uses the symbol of the mouse to do something entirely different than showing the Jews as a threatening presence - instead, he makes the argument to the reader that they were and are the very opposite.