I feel like the guilt of surviving the holocaust that Vladek is a pretty different guilt than what Art feels. I believe it is the guilt of not being apart of such a horrendous time that his family had to endure. He feels that guilty for not being able to truly understand what all of those people in the concentration camps of WWII, both survivors and casualties, lived through, before during and after they were ripped from their lives. He is also feeling guilty for, as he sees it, making a profit off of all those who died in the holocaust. There is also the fact of Art having to deal with his fathers almost neurotic behavior, that I believe are primarily symptoms of PTSD, and not being able to turn off his survival mode as the case of always keeping things around and not wasting anything. So I think it is not as guilt passing down from father to son, as it is his own personal guilt.
I also believe that the fact that this story was told as a graphic novel made it more accessible to readers. This is because it is such a morbid subject to read about a lot of people would not bother to read it, but since it’s in comic form it does not seem as bad. Which was also a reason I had to keep reminding myself this actually happened, this is a real mans account of the horrors of being a Jew in WWII. But at the same time most of times I did not even notice they were mice. It was only in the second book where Art wanted to remind us that he was a man, depicting himself as a man in a mouse mask, which I found humorous in contrast to when Vladek was a mouse with a pig mask on in the first book.
I am really glad you brought up the idea that it may be Art's personal guilt rather than his father's guilt passed down to him. I didn't look at it that way, but I am glad you brought that up. It gives me a different take on how Art might have been feeling instead of blaming everything on his father. I definitely agree that it being a graphic novel made it much easier to read, especially since its a book about the holocaust! When reading book about the Holocaust, I usually have to stop myself from throwing up, but this book was rather easier to read because of the pictures and its comical nature in some ways, (not in a way that makes the holocaust seem like a funny event, which it was definitely not!)but in the way that it turned real characters into animals. It made me understand the holocaust in a different way and I am glad Art chose to make this a graphic novel!
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