One scene we could use to discuss how Vladek’s story affects
Art is in Maus II, pages 41-46, when the reporters swarm Art with questions
right before he goes to see his therapist, Pavel. Art explains to Pavel that he
wants his book to be accurate, but it has become too scary to think about. He
also feels some guilt for portraying his father as a frustrating man. This reminds
me of Tim O’Brien’s quote in The Things
They Carried, “You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you.” In
this case, Art shows his father acting embarrassingly possibly as an effect of
surviving the Holocaust. Pavel suggest that Vladek perhaps felt survivor’s
guilt and took it out on Art when he was younger, as if Art should feel guilty
that he never had to fight to survive.
When Art thinks about writing his book, he shrinks to the
size of a child. It’s as if he doesn’t feel worthy or prepared to write it. He
goes so far as to yell for his mommy on page 42. This is to show that Art’s
father is still looming over him even after he is gone. More than that, the
whole Holocaust is looming over him, as he is tasked with the impossible
mission to illustrate what it was like to survive Auschwitz. In that way, the weight of Vladek's story is transferred to Art.
You reflect on such a crucial segment of Maus II. Art's metemorphasis into a child conveys to me his sense of scale in the world, and being dwarfed by the enormity of his project. Additionally, it conveys a certain naivete about the true grotesqueness of the Holocaust, and feelings of perpetual childhood - no doubt instilled in him by his father's constant reproaches. It's intersting to me also that he calls for absolution right before he calls for his mommy as you mentioned. It's as if his inherited guilt (and perhaps his feelings of complicity or exploitation) leaves him feeling like a perpetrator rather than even a survivor.
ReplyDeleteIt's also telling that Pavel is a Holocaust survivor. I feel like it brings the legacy of the Holocaust even into the "safe space" of Artie's therapy. Clearly he has a preoccupation over his legacy as a survivor's son. Pavel does offer insights that perhaps another therapist may not - having witnessed the horrors of the war himself, he is able to diagnose not only Artie, but to some extent Vladek as well. Thus his suggestion about Vladek's survivor's guilt is not merely therapeutic for Artie; it is genuine and insightful.