Gabriel Moore

IB Language Arts 21-10-2020

Maus Reflection

Maus is a graphic novel illustrated and written by Art Spiegelman exploring his

father’s life before, through and after the haulocaust. Maus begins showing Vladek’s life

starting in his early twenties. The beginning explores Vladek’s love life and how he has

a crazy girlfriend for quite sometime and then finds his future wife via a friend. Vladek

and his wife get married and eventually have children, but after having one of the

children, Vladek’s wife gets severe depression that leads to more severe actions later in

the book. While Art is a young child, his family is moved into the ghettos during the early

stages of the holocaust. This doesn’t affect Art or Vladek too much, not until the Nazis

start clearing the ghettos and moving them into concentration camps. Because of they

are being forced into concentration camps Vladek’s wife eventually commits suicide.

This sets the tone pretty much for the rest of Vladek’s life. Vladek moved into the

concentration camps and went through what most jews went through during the

haulocaust. Vladek survived and eventually remarried, moved to the United States,

moved to Florida and lives a pretty conservative life.