Laura Saleh

06 February 2015
Religion & Literature 235:003
Analysis Paper: Maus

Maus
The Jewish Holocaust has unintentionally produced several exceptional works of
literature. Art Spiegelman's Maus, published in the 1980s, represents a new kind of
literary technique inspired and based on the Holocaust. Written by a second generation
Holocaust survivor, Maus fuses the story of the terrible historical occurrence with a
Jewish American's struggle to forge his own understanding of the brutal extermination of
his people by the Nazi regime in the Second World War. The plot recounts Vladek's
experiences in Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp, and the difficult dynamics that can
manifest between Holocaust survivors and their children.
It is ironic to see that throughout the whole book the Jewish religion is not often
practiced or discussed much in Maus. Although the whole concept of the Holocaust is
based on their religion by being Jews, there seems to be no set of racial and cultural
factors when classifying the "Jewish" religion. In a subconscious matter, Judaism for Art
has become a form of a symbolic meaning of the Holocaust. Although Art does not
mention it, it is quite obvious that Art is not as religious as his father is. It has become
more of a form of a break and it has been diluted in Art's religious faith. In a way this
goes for Vladek as well, although he does mention that he is religious and we see that

Vladek does pray everyday, for the remainder of his life he does not mention his religious
faith.
It is understandable that the Jews and Art's family's brutal experiences during the
Holocaust could have such an impact in their faith because of the horrifying events that
took place in their lives due to their religion, where the Jews froze and starved to death
within the prisoner war camps and were brutally killed. Art Spiegelman acknowledges
the lack of his cultural connections within Judaism the only time we see a form of
connection with the religion is in Chapter five in "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" comic
where Vladek is shown praying in Hebrew over the casket of his dead wife and as they
recite from the Tibetan book of the dead during his mother's funeral, rather than from the
Torah. This is also a reason why the religion itself has become for Vladek and Art a form
of extreme stress and pain and therefore is not a daily life ritual since both Vladek and Art
are deeply much affected by the Holocaust and the death of Anja.
The most obvious literary element used in Maus is the animal allegory of the
mice. Hitler considered Jews vermin so the irony is quite telling. Depicting the Jewish
people as mice conveys an assortment of different attitudes towards the Jewish people
such that they are small, loveable, harmless, and yet perilous, repellent, and ugly.
Portraying the Germans as cats brings out the power and malevolence of the entire
Holocaust experience, in which cats do not just kill mice, they capture them, play with
them, and then kill them. Natural sworn enemies, both cat and mice lack reason and
conscience. The most significant symbol within the novel is the stationary bike. Vladek
tries to pedal faster and faster in order to escape his memories, his recollections, and the
effects of the Holocaust, but his efforts do not allow him to go anywhere; he is unable to

escape his past. Vladek paddles harder showing the building up of strong emotion and
hatred, symbolizing his subconscious want to get off the bike, but is still unable to relieve
himself of the tension of the Holocaust. The bike is also a motif in the story as it seen
through out the novel to tie different parts of the story together.
There is a very direct connection between the authors lived experience and the
context of the text itself. Although Spiegelman himself didnt experience the holocaust,
he is able to live through the events of the holocaust vicariously through his father.
Starting in 1978, Spiegelman, then a well-known underground cartoonist, began
interviewing his father about his wartime experiences. In the early 1980s, he began
creating strips that narrated his fathers stories and were gently framed by his own
relationship with his father, a miserly and compulsive character; the strips were published
in RAW under the title Maus. Both the title and the device of portraying Jews as mice and
Germans as cats had been used by Spiegelman before, in a three-page strip he had
published in 1972 and that was later published in his collection Breakdowns: Portrait of
the Artist.
This text indirectly speaks to the broader questions of human seeking through
several different factors such as the many themes that seem to be prevalent throughout
the book. The central theme of Maus focuses the racial genocide enacted by Germans
against Jews during the Holocaust of World War II. Vladek's experiences during the war
detail the brutal persecution of Jews by German soldiers as well as by Polish citizens.
Vladek's personal story takes the reader inside the Auschwitz concentration camp and
illustrates the daily horrors he experienced during his imprisonment. Spiegelman's choice
to represent national and ethnic identity groups as different species of animals in Maus

emphasizes the atmosphere of racial prejudice during the war. His depiction of the Jews
as meek mice and the Germans as predator cats illustrates the insurmountable power the
Germans wielded over their victims. Another major theme that contributes to the
questions of human seeking is guilt. Maus tackles questions of guilt and blame on two
levels: the individual and the collective. On an individual level, Holocaust survivors must
come to terms with survivors guilt, their guilt over surviving those who died in the
camps. Their children experience a similar kind of guilt, over not sharing their parents
experience of the Holocaust and living a life untroubled by the same trauma. Collectively,
Maus turns to the question of whether the responsibility for the Holocaust extends
beyond Nazi Germany.
While the Holocaust is one of the most horrible episodes of history, it is not one
that could or should be forgotten. Not only does the book narrate the horrors of the
concentration camps located in Poland, it also displays the difficulties of second
generation Holocaust survivors to find a way to come to terms with the horrors of their
ancestors. Its graphical novel format plays an essential role in making the story come
alive, as does the troubled relationship between Vladek and Art. In conclusion, it must be
reiterated that Maus is not merely a narrative of the Holocaust, but also a story of human
suffering and struggle, not just after a devastating experience like the concentration
camps, but also afterwards.

Works Cited
"Maus Questions and Resources Page, Prof. Marcuse, UCSB." Maus Questions and
Resources Page, Prof. Marcuse, UCSB. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2015.
"Summary of Graphic Novel." The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman. N.p., n.d. Web. 06
May 2015.
"Q&A With Art Spiegelman, Creator of 'Maus'" Tablet Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May
2015.
"A Critical Analysis of Maus I: My Father Bleeds History." Daniel Wises EPortfolio. N.p.,
24 Oct. 2008. Web. 06 May 2015.