Literary Analysis Essay on Maus: A Graphic Novel on Holocaust Survival

Maus is a graphic story written by an American comic artist Art Spiegelman. The novel shows Spiegelman interviewing his father, who is a holocaust survivor and a Jew from the Polish origin. The novel utilizes modern post strategies where the Jews represent the mice, the Nazis are cats, and the Poles are pigs. The narration of the story begins in New York City, where Spiegelman's father Vdalek gives an account of his experiences as a holocaust survivor. The stories are depicted from the years close to World War II and up to the author's parent's liberation from the Nazi camps. The account revolves around Spiegelman's problems of not getting along with his father which is worsened by the absence of his mother who committed suicide while the author was only 20 years old.

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The time shift in the two volumes helps us to understand the past better because it gives a narration of what happened, how it happened and the consequences for the occurrences. The past is connected to the present in the novel because the decision made from previous experiences affect the present lives of the holocaust survivors and all the comic characters in the novel. One of the ways through which the time shifts between the two volumes help us to understand the past better is that through the first volume, the early times of Vdalek the holocaust survivor is given. Through his account, the reader gets to know his origin as a Polish Jew who had an average life as a trader in textiles that could afford him his provisions. It gives the good old days before horror and bloody moments began. It shows the reader that there were moments when one could be at peace and work for their living and not prisoners of war.

Through the shifts, the readers can understand the life early life of Spiegelman and her mother Anja, who later dies from depression. In the first volume, the revelation of postpartum depression is given, which is in the past and the present, the rationale behind the burning of all wartime stories from Anja is depicted. Vdalek explains that he burnt the documents because of the memories it gave him. It implies that history became the excruciating thing for Vdalek and would destroy whatever gave him the painful memories of the past life. At one point he tells his son "all such things of the war, I tried to put out of my mind once and for all... until you rebuild all of this from your questions" (p.98). It an indication that there is a connection between the first and the second volumes, which helps a reader to understand what happened.

Through Anja's diaries in volume I it is evident that there were lots of painful memories which linked the past to the present, and this is the reason Vdalek had to burn them. While in their interaction with his son, he states " I had to make an order with everything...these papers had too many memories. So I burned them" ( p.158). It is an indication that what they were seeing gave a better view of their past. In the middle of the second page is a board that is saturated with indicators of the present and the past. A space that was once Artie's room is shown. He can be able to understand the past by looking at the present. He at least knows they had a home and had his room before the painful experiences of war robbed them of their sanity and comfort.

Spiegelman fills up his board with indicators of the past, for instance, prewar photographs and the camp tattoo as well as the crucial markers of the presser times which entail Art framed by Spiegelman's body; his parents after war child who was later born in the Swedish land after the couple lost their child to the Nazi's. The intertwining of the past and the present is shown throughout the architectural board. In the third chapter of Maus I Artie is seen on the floor of his father's place in Rego Park. He has a pencil in his hand and an open notebook where he can take notes as he obtains stories from his father. The connection between the past and the present is depicted by a verbal corresponding, for instance, when Vdalek describes the gruelling experiences of a prisoner of war while at work. When Vdalek interrupts his narration by cautioning Artie, an aspect of the experiences of the past is seen. He states "but look what you do Artie! You are dropping on the carpet cigarette ashes. You want it should be a stable here?" (p.52). Vdaleks words represent a constitutive practice which explains that remembering is the building of the past. In the first volume, Maus speaks about cleanliness as portrayed by caution because of smoke and ashes on the carpet. Still, in the second it dwells on humanity where smoke from cigarette represents smoke of human flesh going upward form a crematorium in Auschwitz (Spiegelman, 1992).

Maus I &II is a good example of how the past affects the present because through the various narrations given in the present past in it is seen. One of the reasons why the statement is true is because the comic work done by Spiegelman in the present is a representation of past experiences. The past experiences of Anja affect the author in a big way because he still wants to have a feel of his mothers presence and the reason he gets angry when Vdalek tells him that he burnt all the diaries. Similarly, Vdalek still gets hurt by the memories that come from his first wives accounts, and though they are things that took place in the past, it is affecting his current life.

Additionally, in Maus II, the past life of genocide brings memories in the present which no one wants to remember. The dispute on whether to call the Bosnia show genocide now is a way which shows that people did not want to remember the past anymore because it affects their present peace. It is important to note that the author of Maus has used great skill in bringing the back and forth element to link the pats to the present. The occurrences of the past which include pain torture and loss of lives indicates that the people who experienced some this scenes are psychologically affected for life, for instance, Vdalek. He does not want to give so much about the pats because it makes him have bad memories about the good life he had before he began bleeding.

References

Spiegelman, Art. The complete maus. Vol. 1. Pantheon, 1991.