The Holocaust of the Jewish nation during World War II is one of the most tragic episodes in the history of mankind. Literature, as a form of art created to reflect the reality as such addresses the topic of the Holocaust rather often, but the means of its depicting typically remain the same, as scholars resort to documentation overview and historical analysis. The short stories Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman are the examples of the innovative, not traditional approach to the topic of the Holocaust. In his Maus II, Art Spiegelman depicts the legacy of Holocaust using the animal images and comic book techniques.
The interesting point about the short story by Art Spiegelman is the fact that this work of art uses the comic book technique to represent the events of the past and their effects upon the present. Depicting the controversial feelings of Art, one of the main heroes of Maus II, Art Spiegelman tries not only to reflect his personal memories about his family’s being among the prisoners of Auschwitz, but also reflects on the complexity of guilt experienced by his generation: “I guess it’s some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did…” (Speigelman (1993) as cited in Lauter, 2009, p. 780). Thus, apart from the historical perspective, Art Speigelman considers the moral and emotional perspectives of Holocaust.
The memory of the next generation, in relation to the generation that lived through World War II and the Holocaust, is a crucial concept in the present. Therefore, Art Spiegelman shows how much the people that did not see the horrors of Auschwitz want to save the memories of their parents, and how difficult, at the same time, it is for them to reproduce the memories of actual Auschwitz prisoners: “Reality is too complex for comics…so much has to be left out or distorted” (Speigelman (1993) as cited in Lauter, 2009, p. 781). The example of this controversy of wishes and actual opportunities is Art with whose considerations and moral dilemmas Maus II begins.
Analysis of the issue of the legacy of the Holocaust is a complex task. It involves understanding the nature of the people’s experiences about the Holocaust as well as the mentality of next generations that display certain guilt for being placed into easier living conditions than their parents and grandparents. The example of Art from Maus II can serve as a bright illustration to this point. Being a son of the former Auschwitz prisoner Vladek, Art tries to reflect his father’s experiences in a comic book but soon realizes that alone he is unable to render the actual emotions and pain of the Holocaust as he did not experience it. So, he is partly afraid of distorting the truth or being forced to drop certain details. Here, the legacy of the Holocaust is observed again; this time in the mentality of people.
Thus, the short story Maus II by Art Spiegelman is not only a comic book considering the Holocaust experiences of the author’s father Vladek, but also an insight into the mind of the next generations of people some of who often have respect for Holocaust victims, while others feel free to interpret the events of the World War II without confirmation from those who actually know the truth.
Works Cited
Lauter, Paul (Gen. Ed.) The Heath Anthology of American Literature: Contemporary Period (1945 to the Present). Cengage Heinle, 2009. Print.