Visual Narrative of Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” Essay

The topic of World War II is not easy to discuss or display. Such works are often subjected to severe criticism for their relevance to reality (Kohli 4). Particularly close attention is paid to the deviation of the narrative from any generally accepted canons in content and form. Art Spiegelman’s Maus belongs to the latter type, as it presents the reader with a story about the life of a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust in the unusual form of a graphic novel.

However, despite the chosen environment’s unusualness to reflect such topics, Spiegelman uses its features to his advantage. Considering the format selected by the author, this work should be examined precisely in the context of a visual rather than a purely textual narrative (Ewert 87). Graphical display of events allows switching between two time periods without losing the narrative’s coherence, even if one timeline suddenly interrupts the other. Thus, Spiegelman uses graphic means to convey the narrative in more detail, paying attention to critical points and developing characters who think about the story being told right during the retelling. This essay aims to research this graphic novel using additional sources to support the thesis put forward.

Several vital elements characterize Maus’s graphic form. First of all, a distinctive feature of the work is the use of anthropomorphic animals as characters, while the type of animal depends on nationality. Thus, Jews are represented as mice, and Germans are portrayed as cats. The riskiness of such a step, which may be associated with national stereotypes, is justified by the need to vividly visualize the horrors of the Holocaust (Gavrilă 61). Secondly, as mentioned above, there are two timelines in the novel, the first of which takes place in the present relative to the author of the time, and the second is the memories of one of the characters.

The story is recorded from the words of Vladek Spiegelmann by his son Artie, whose names coincide with the names of the author himself and his father. Artie’s father is a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, so this story aims to convey the story of the Nazi invasion (Spiegelman 23). Already here, one can note the skillful use of the graphic form of the novel. Anthropomorphic animals’ use does not make the story more childish but instead expresses specific subtext (Munk 55). The choice of animals implicitly indicates the relationship between the Nazis and the Jews since the former hunted the latter in the same way as their animal counterparts.

However, to analyze Maus more deeply, it is necessary to turn to how the narrative is structured. First of all, one can note the presence of the author’s voice in the form of Vladek and gaps in the text (Rajkhowa 45). Transitions from one timeline to another are a crucial element of the narrative, as they are almost always associated with Vladek’s comments on the situation. Most of the story takes place in the past tense; however, Artie and Vladek periodically interrupt it with their lines, asking questions to comment on what is happening.

One of the first manifestations of this technique can be seen already in the book’s first pages. Behind such moments, the direct reaction of the characters to the described events is hidden and the assessment or reassessment of what is happening. The first example of this behavior can be noted when Artie asks his father an awkward question about the nature of Vladek and Lucia’s relationship (Spiegelman 15). Although Vladek responds with just one line, the reader can see the character’s regret for what happened thanks to the graphic display. The father recalls moments of his life, rethinking them and admitting his mistakes.

Such moments make the characters much more alive and turn Vladek from a storyteller into a living person who doubts his deeds and sometimes interrupts the story because of everyday trifles. A man can be distracted, for example, by fallen ash, thereby showing himself as a character with his own emotions and attitude (Spiegelman 52). Often, Vladek is quite strict both to his son and those around him. Besides, in his everyday comments, a reader can see the traits of a Holocaust survivor, for example, in an uncompromising attitude towards money, which saved his life many times, or leftover food (Merino). For a person who has gone through tremendous hardships, waste of food or a frivolous attitude towards things is unacceptable.

However, even more essential breaks in the narrative are those that directly or indirectly emphasize Vladek’s ability to survive under challenging conditions. For example, describing his life as a prisoner-worker, the father notes that some prisoners could not bear the hard work and returned to the cold camp to starve. However, Vladek notes that he does not know what became of them, thereby hinting that he had enough strength to work and survive even under the Germans’ yoke (Spiegelman 56). Later, having already lived in the ghetto with his wife, Vladek began to sell various items and stealthily delivering sugar to shops. Vladek comments that despite the immense danger of being hanged, even when he was caught, he managed to wriggle out, pretending to have a grocery store (Spiegelman 85). Such moments show the character’s assessment of his actions, which helped him survive.

There are also abundant moments of reevaluation and rethinking of the spoken words. Vladek’s memories are quite heavy, and he retells them either reluctantly or with a heavy sadness. So, for example, at the moment of grief of the father’s wife for relatives who ended up in a concentration camp, the narration is interrupted, while Vladek from the “modern” timeline repeats the words he said many years ago (Spiegelman 122). At other times, Vladek had to sacrifice his interests to survive and ensure his wife’s survival. Despite facing insults towards Jews, the man maintained his disguise using a fascist greeting (Spiegelman 149). Through an assessment of the past events, one can emphasize the courage and dedication of Vladek, who hid right in the enemy’s lair, using only his arrogance and cunning. However, in many cases, he had to be ruthless and manipulative for his survival, lying to the people (Ketchum Glass 16). Through the available visualization, the reader can see that Vladek regrets many of his actions but considers them necessary.

Thus, most of the moments when the narrative is interrupted by the words of Artie or Vladek communicating with his son serve several purposes. First, Vladek gives the reader his assessment of his ability to survive, allowing him to understand him as a character better. Besides, a man periodically shows his perspective and doubts it, hesitating about the correctness of certain decisions. Finally, such moments are sometimes associated with how a man survived and with simple, everyday trifles that reveal him as a character – courage, resourcefulness, and perseverance. Through interactions in the “modern” timeline, the reader can better understand what Vladek went through, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of the depth of the tragedy of the Jewish people in World War II. Thus, Spiegelman’s graphic means are an effective way of conveying the author’s thoughts, which would otherwise need to be expressed in a large number of detailed descriptions. Using the graphic novel format, Spiegelman made a much shorter but no less meaningful story than full-fledged text novels, replacing some of the text tools with graphics and illustrations.

Works Cited

Ewert, Jeanne C. “Reading Visual Narrative: Art Spiegelman’s “Maus”.” Narrative, vol. 8, no. 1, 2000, pp. 87-103.

Gavrilă, Ana-Maria. “Holocaust Representation and Graphical Strangeness in Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale:“Funny Animals,” Constellations, and Traumatic Memory.” Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Communicatio, vol. 4, 2017, pp. 61-75.

Ketchum Glass, Susannah. “Witnessing the Witness: Narrative slippage in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Life Writing, vol. 3, no. 2, 2006, pp. 3-24.

Kohli, Puneet. “The Memory and Legacy of Trauma in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Prandium: The Journal of Historical Studies at U of T Mississauga, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1-23.

Merino, Ana. “Memory in Comics: Testimonial, Autobiographical and Historical Space in MAUS.” Transatlantica. Revue d’études américaines. American Studies Journal, vol. 1 (2010).

Munk, Tea-Maria. “The Holocaust in Pictures: Maus and the Narrative of the Graphic Novel.” Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English, vol. 2, 2018, 54-59.

Rajkhowa, Baishalee. “Multimodal Stylistics in Graphic Novel: Understanding the Visual Language Syntax in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, vol. 4, no. 1, 2021, pp. 45-51.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History. Pantheon, 1986.