In Maus, it is absolutely evident that the traumas of the Holocaust are passed down from father to son. To claim that there would be no emotional effects of such an event would be preposterous. Art Spiegelman makes it very obvious that he feels guilt over the Holocaust, that he is in a way a survivor, and that he admires his father for being a survivor, which implies a kind of win or lose thought process regarding. The concept of guilt is, thus, one was that the traumas of the Holocaust are passed down. Also, Art feels as if his mother was murdered by Vladek because he burned her diaries, which were his only way of ever finding out Anjas views and emotions during and after she was in Birkenau. Art felt as if his mother was taken away from him by his father, which also may insinuate that he already felt that way when his mother committed suicide. Art blames his father for a lot of things, including being the stereotypical Jew. He sees his father as a flawless representation of what the Nazi's hated about "jewry" in the reich.
As a graphic novel, Art was able to give emotion and provide imagery that otherwise would have been difficult. It was easier for him to convey sarcasm, to provide insight into the physical mannerisms in which people acted with. I feel as though a downside is the potential to misinterpret how decrepit the conditions were for Jews in Germany and Poland. The graphical content is, however interesting to look at, very simplistic and, I feel, tears away a layer of grime that is necessary when discussing the holocaust. In literary works without images, the depictions of the Holocaust are more or less left up to the imagination of the reader to create based off of the words used to describe them, and the words used are typically more bleak in comparison to the images in Maus. With the faces and masks, though, I will say that Art gave a new dimension to the concept of the Jew rat, the Polish "swine", and the Nazi's as cats, hunters of the rats. Adding the animals face and body to the character makes it...easier(?) to see the social distinctions between the "races".
I like how you pointed out that Art felt as though Vladek murdered his mom by burning her diaries. This shows that Vladek was going through survivals guilt and depression that he would do such a thing. It majorly impacted Art because he lost the only piece of his mother that he would have had left. It's just one of the many ways that the Holocaust effected even the generations after the survivors. I don't necessarily agree that the graphical content tears away from the layer of grime. I believe it adds to it because just as you point out many works of the Holocaust are just words and the reader has to produce an image, but when Art draws something, even though it is animals it gives us a clearer picture of what really happened.
ReplyDelete