Sean Brannock

Dr. Z.

AP6 Lang

10/6/2022

Claustrophobia and Entrapment

In the second volume of Maus, Vladek and all of the Jews were being held

captive in Poland. The way that the Nazi’s ruled over the Jews led to the overarching

theme of Entrapment becomming prevalent. Art reflects this in the story of Maus by

depicting the town as a deeply claustrophobic place overrun with the nazi guards.

People are taken left and right with no compassion and everyone who is stuck in this

town is constantly on eggshells, fearing for their lives.

In the chapter, the people of the town have to live their lives in fear that their

possessions will not get stolen because the Nazi’s at this time in the town are just taking

possessions away from people with no regard for them.

(M1, Spiegelman)
In this panel, we get an example of just this when the Nazi’s steal furnature from the

jews with no regard. The visual metaphor of the Jewish being mice and the Nazi’s being

cats comes into play here as cats are predators that kill Mice. The Nazis are litereally

preying on the Jews; the Jews know that if they do anything out of line they will be

arrested and as Vladek says, those people are never seen again. There are a few

select panels in this chapter that make the reader visually understand the fact that these

people are trapped in a prison like claustrophobia.

This panel from the story features a pan-out shot of the family and the camera is

placed outside the window facing inwards. This makes the viewer understand that this is

visually and literally a prison. The window pane is synonymous with a jail cell. This is

how Art visually conveys the fact that the Jewish mice are truly trapped. The way that

the Jews respond is rather interesting. They respond, at least in this part of the story

with compliance and allow the Nazi’s to walk all over them. In reality, what are a bunch

of small weak mice going to do against a big group of bully cats; Nothing.
 Throughout the chapter the ‘noose’ around the Jews tightens. This is obviously a

reference to how the control​​ that the Nazi’s have over the Jews is incerasing every day

and every day the Jews have less and less rights or freedoms due to the occupation of

poland by the Nazi’s. The most interesting part is the fact that Art specifies a noose is

tightening, he could have chosen anything else like a chain but no, ​is specifically a

noose. There is a scene in the chapter where a couple of jews are hanged but there is a

deeper meaning to this.

(Maus 1, Spiegelman)

This panel gets a little deeper into the meaning of the noose is tightening. The Jews are

dying, which explains the noose part; nooses are associated with death but the

tightening part is in reference to the fact that the Jews rights are being taken away for

the littlest things and that the punishment for doing anything wrong is literally death.

The Jews over the course of this chapter, have all of their basic human rights taken

away from them and have to be compliant with a tyrannical invading force who does not

care about what the Jews think about this. All of the families have to live in fear as they

watch people be taken away to concentration camps or as they watch people get
hanged in the center of the town to set a precedent of what will happen if a mouse gets

in the way of a cat.