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Children of Holocaust survivors are forced to endure the emotional burdens of their parents even though they themselves did not experience the Holocaust. As it was depicted in Maus, Artie often felt burdened with survivor’s guilt whenever he tried to communicate with his father. Artie felt as if he was never enough and was not allowed to complain because he knew that his father went through so much more as a Holocaust survivor. Stated in Stanislav’s Intergenerational transmission of trauma in Spiegelman’s Maus, “Art’s story confirms the assertion that generations which have never been exposed to a traumatic event can ‘inherit’ the trauma of their ancestors and that the most common channel of this intergenerational and transgenerational transmission is through the family” (Stanislav 228). Children of Holocaust survivors live through the trauma their parents went through by simply existing, causing them to have burdens that they may not fully understand. Since the children of Holocaust survivors didn’t actually go through the Holocaust, it can be hard for them to understand why their parents have certain responses to some things, or just their actions in general. This misunderstanding often causes problems with communication between the parent and child, which was very evident throughout the entirety of Maus. Artie most likely does not understand the trauma Vladek went through, therefore he was very annoyed with Vladek’s various habits. For example, Vladek loves to save money on everything he can even though it is not entirely necessary anymore. This habit is likely taken from his time in the Holocaust when he had to save whatever he could in order to survive. Since Artie did not experience the Holocaust, he could not understand the purpose of Vladek’s odd habits even though he had to live with Vladek for the majority of his life. Since the lives of Artie and Vladek don’t align too well, that is most likely the reason why their relationship is not that great. This can be applied to many young people today as well. Many young people today live extremely different lives from their parents, so it is particularly difficult for both to relate to each other. This lack of understanding creates distance between parents and children, possibly causing the child to feel burdened for not living up to the standards of their parents.

It is not possible to move beyond generational trauma because it is something that will always be there. Even if someone were to try and ignore the trauma, trauma does not just go away on demand. Through time people can learn to live with their trauma, but it can never be forgotten. Trauma is always shown through subconscious actions that children will learn from. Therefore, simply never bringing the topic up will not work because children will eventually find out. Especially if the trauma is from something as big as the Holocaust, it is almost impossible to ignore or hide. Instead, acknowledging the trauma is better because that could possibly bring awareness and understanding to certain habits from the said trauma. At the beginning of Maus, Artie and Vladek seemed a lot more distant than by the end of the graphic novel. This is most likely due to the fact that by the end of Maus, Artie knows almost everything his father has gone through. Although he himself did not go through the Holocaust, he now knows why his father has such habits for saving things. Just knowing his father’s situation made him more empathetic towards Vladek, creating a better relationship between the two. After telling Artie his entire story, Vladek had finally acknowledged his trauma and was ready to leave his legacy to Artie.

I would say Spiegelman’s use of the comic form definitely has pros and cons in conveying the weight of the Holocaust. On one hand the use of animals does a great job at representing the “kill or be killed” or “survival of the fittest” lifestyle of animals in general. Objectively speaking it could also be because having all the characters being animals makes it easier for the general public to digest. This is because it could appear as less personal to see these acts happening to animals instead of recognizing the inhumane actions a fellow human was committing. However, I believe it is an effective metaphor as the Nazi’s slaughtered the Jews just as cats kill mice, and the cat vs mouse idea has always been around even in Hollywood (Tom and Jerry) just like how antisemitism has always run rampant in Europe especially.

When the tone switches to be more serious and tense to highlight certain parts of Vladek's history that is what really works in the comic format. Since Maus is very different from other comics I’ve read when more shocking realistic panels come up, it works really well with the style to shock the reader as a reminder that this isn’t just a dark story but real events. Comic art styles are usually reserved for more fantasy works so it's unique in the sense that it is very different and stands alone as something more educational. On the topic of how the novel shifts from past to present, it is a good knot to how ptsd could affect survivors of the Holocaust. One second they could be present, but something could set them off which would cause them to relive a certain moment of their past. The article, “The Shadow of Past Time”, does a very good job at summarizing how Maus chooses to portray the Holocaust, and more specifically Spiegelman’s fathers’ history. I thought it was a really interesting choice to do a comic form which could cause many to argue that it seriously lacked seriousness. Maus is one of a kind in the way that it sets itself apart from other accounts of the Holocaust. While the contents are nothing revolutionary the way the contents were presented to the reader makes it stand out. Most of the other mediums used to discuss sensitive topics are often very serious works or literature or documentaries focused on the crestfallen faces of those who are speaking. Maus however chooses to dive into the present and little conversations between the author and his father which could appear immature to some. Seeing what some would call a petty argument between a father and son doesn’t seem appropriate when compared to the serious contents of the rest of the graphic novel. I feel like Maus is a little lacking in properly conveying the historical weight of the Holocaust. Most other books I’ve read or media in general regarding the Holocaust have multiple stories compiled into one, or have a decent amount of statics to properly frame just how big of an event this had on the general public. Maus was only one story, but that doesn’t mean that it was any less valuable. Overall, I’d say that Maus does more than a job when it comes to talking and informing people about the Holocaust.

The chaos and destruction of the Holocaust are proven to have left its survivors with trauma and internal turmoil that affects them and the following generations for the majority, if not the entirety, of their lives. Artie Spiegelman effectively showcases this phenomenon in Maus, as he has a rocky relationship with his father, which can be directly linked to the infamous genocide of 6 million Jewish people. Through his father, Vladek, readers can see just how the relationship between parents and their children is affected. Vladek is portrayed with “an almost unbearable frugality, pedantry, authoritativeness”, one of the many factors that began a strain between Artie and his father (Stanislav 236). Spiegelman tries his best to spend as little time with his father as possible to prevent losing his head over an argument caused by their contrasting personalities. He even goes as far as to shut Vladek up by cutting him off whenever he goes on one of his tangents. Art gains insight into why his father behaves the way he does, but to no avail, their relationship remains stagnant. There exist psychological consequences that arise for the child from an estranged relationship with a surviving parent. Maus depicts depression and incompetence, a couple of the several feelings the offspring of survivors have the possibility of adopting, through Art’s late brother Richieu, who died during the Holocaust. Additionally, Spiegelman explicitly details harboring “some kind of guilt about having an easier life than [his parents] did” (16).

It is clear that Artie has little to no patience with his father due to the resentment that has bubbled up throughout his life. This resentment generally manifests in the way the traumatized parent raises their children, passing on the trauma. We see from Maus how the Holocaust impacts a parent-son relationship, but this genocide can also affect other aspects of second-generation survivors’ lives. Beyond Artie’s depicted emotions, some can experience biological changes, feeling like they’re undeserving of success or happiness, social detachment, and much more.

Trauma could also translate into the desire to tell the stories of their parents, like Artie’s. However, feelings of overwhelmedness and/or confusion may surface during or after crafting the work. Spiegelman reflects this at the beginning of the second chapter of Maus II, when he draws himself depressed and masked, a metaphor for his personal feelings of phoniness when it comes to his Jewish identity.

Considering the endless consequences that come from generational trauma, it is not possible to simply move past and ignore it. Traumatic experiences can creep into one’s social, psychological, and physical well-being, as shown through Holocaust survivors and their offspring. This is proven through other notorious major events. For example, forgetting the impacts of slavery, another disturbing event that killed millions, and its effects on America since abolition would lead citizens to ignore the injustices Black people faced and continue to face in the modern-day. Living with and addressing all the factors of trauma, including the history behind it and its aftermath, is the only way to make steps towards officially moving forward from it without forgetting its influence.

The use of comic form in Maus doesn’t negatively affect the storytelling at all, in fact it improves the comprehensibility of the novel. Art Spiegelman is able to effectively convey the emotional and historical weight of the holocaust in a comic format. Although many argue that a comic is too informal of a medium to depict an event as serious as the holocaust, especially because all the characters are animals, I believe that he does a great job at preserving the gravity of the situation through his art. One example I can think of is the drawing of him at his desk, on top of a pile of dead bodies. Though it is only a drawing the atmosphere of the scene is dark and depressing. It is clear that Art isn’t taking the millions of lives lost lightly, and that he understands the serious nature of his graphic novel. Another serious scene is where we find out how Richieu died. When Vladek’s friend realizes that she and the children are being taken to a camp, there is a close up on her when she decides to kill them and herself. This scene is quite dark and sad; the intensity of the scene is also apparent in how harshly the character is drawn. Art Spiegelman does a great job depicting the raw emotions of his father’s experiences through his drawings. The comic book format also contributes to the symbolism within the novel, and improves the story-telling. In “The Shadow of Past Time” the author argues that Maus being a graphic novel helps it to not “betray the past”, but instead elaborate on the presence of the past. I agree with that idea because throughout the graphic novel Art Spiegelman artfully connects the past and present through his art. Not only does this ease the flow of the narrative and make it less jarring to read, it also visually shows that the past affects the present. One scene mentioned in the article is the hanging of the Jewish girls who revolted in a camp. Spiegelman depicts the girls as hanging in the trees of the forest that he and Vladek were driving through. Symbolically it seems as if Art and Vladek are driving out of the forest and that scene, as if to move on from the past, but we know that isn’t the case. The trauma that Vladek has a result of the holocaust won’t go away no matter how much time has passed. He was impacted by those events for the rest of his life, and that’s shown by the panels of the past melding with the present; it’s as if they’ll never leave.

The common American saying, “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree,” explains how children are reflections of their parents. Details and trauma from parents are often imprinted onto their children, as they are raised with the same fear as their parents from their trauma. As a consequence, the trauma of parents gets passed down and transformed into generational trauma. In cases of extreme trauma, like experiencing the Holocaust, parents tend to raise their kids with more caution and fear. The parents, after experiencing the loss of their freedoms, livelihoods, and identities, are embedded with caution. As parents, these survivors tend to be fearful of a similar fate for their children, leading these children to have drastically different lives from others around their age. This difference in their upbringings is a large source of generational trauma. This is because although they didn’t experience the trauma firsthand, they experienced how it changes someone, and they had to grow up as if they had experienced the trauma. This can be reflected in many ways, for Art Spiegelman, it was a barrier being built between him and his dad. This wall between them as well as Vladek being so closed off could have very well been a coping mechanism learned from the Holocaust. This absence of a relationship with his father had to have impacted Artie very deeply, and the root cause of these impacts would have ultimately been the Holocaust and its trauma.

Additionally, the children of those with trauma tend to have a sort of guilt for what their parents experienced since just because the Holocaust ended doesn't mean its effects have. Art, though never having experienced the Holocaust himself, had to experience the effects of it. The death of his mother was heavily influenced by her experiences during the Holocaust. In “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” Artie’s comic about the death of his mother, he says that his mother committed the perfect crime as she left him to take the blame for her death. Despite him not actually being at fault, Artie felt like people thought it was his fault. Through this experience, Artie was able to have trauma from the Holocaust, even if he didn't experience it himself. He felt guilty because of everything his mother went through that resulted in her untimely death and he felt guilty because he felt partly to blame for it. Stanislav Kolář explores this in “The Shadow of Past Time,” saying how “The connection between Art’s personal trauma and the Holocaust is even more obvious in a frame which shows the grieving Art as a prisoner as if he himself were in a death camp.” This idea of the effect of his mom's death on him being equivalent to her experiences during the Holocaust depicts the intensity of generational trauma felt by Artie.

Since generational trauma can be at the root of several problems for children of survivors, it's important to acknowledge the effects and their solutions. This helps to not only mitigate the problems caused by generational trauma in the present but also to help stop them from going on and affecting more generations. In doing this, generational trauma can be moved past.

I believe that generational trauma has such a big impact on the children of survivors because they carry guilt with them like no other. Throughout Maus, Art Spiegelman shows the life that his father, Vladek, had through the Holocaust and even after. Through the trauma of his father, Art lives a life based on what his father and mother wanted to be. After Vladek and Anja, Art’s mother, lost their first kid Richieu during the Holocaust, they seemed to have wanted Art to fit the image his brother once had. Art said multiple times, especially in the story that he published that he didn’t want his father to read because he knew it would make him feel a certain way. That story involved him sharing feelings about how neglected he felt when all his life, he had to fill the shoes of Richieu. He is required to understand an experience that he never lived, although it was told through the storytelling of Vladek. He shows survivor’s guilt and the guilt of feeling underappreciated as a son because he had to constantly live up to what Richieu could’ve been. This is shown when Vladek explains that Richieu was going to be successful later in life if he hadn’t died.

It also showed that he felt upset that he never got to know his mother like his father did. Having parents who lived through trauma, although they might not realize it, has a big impact on the way their children live. When talking and interviewing his father for the book, he discovered many things about him that completely changed his view of his father. Art, wanting to know more about his mother before she died, couldn’t believe that Vladek burned her journals. He called him a murderer because she erased the only life he could’ve known about his mother. But that is the contrast between a father and a son, they view their actions differently. Vladek did it for himself, he didn’t want to have to keep living that life that he already lost so much in, he had every right to burn Anja’s journals. Art saw it as Vladek destroying the only thing he had left to get to know his mother, which is reasonable, but calling his father a murderer is where he went beyond what he should’ve. Art seemed like he was judging his father a lot when it came to the racist story as well as the way he approached some situations. They both seemed to have different aspects of survival.

Art looked down on his father because he judged him a lot but didn’t fully consider that what he had to do was for survival. Art struggles with guilt and responsibility for trauma that he didn’t experience directly. The storytelling in Maus allows Vladek to have agency over his narrative and get a chance to experience his personal story. In modern times, generational trauma can be shown through oneself or societal challenges overall like poverty, racism, etc. He faces constant tension between his identity and the trauma inherited by his parents. He emphasizes in the novel that generational trauma cannot be erased and art and storytelling can allow one to view sorrow from the survivor’s lenses.

(I accidentally posted on the wrong section, sorry)

Generational trauma impacts the children of Holocaust survivors through the inheritance of behaviors, to the permanence of guilt that occurs when constantly having to compare themselves to parents and family members who have experienced the worst of the worst.

The children of Holocaust Survivors often feel an large sense of helplessness and guilt, unable to have intervened with their parent’s trauma. They can feel bad, but that’s all they can do– simply feel bad. We see this happen with Artie and the intentions of creating his comic: “[Maus] expresses his regret over what he should have done and has not. As a matter of fact, his narrative is permeated by self-accusation; he ruminates that he might have saved her if he had got home when expected and if he had not been resentful to her attempt to tighten their emotional bond, or, in other words, if he had not suppressed love for her. He feels responsibility for her death because he realizes that his resentment, be it a pose or a sign of the alienation from his parents, could be interpreted as a betrayal.” (Stanislav 5) This reveals that Artie feels much regret for his mother’s death, albeit an uncontrollable fate and he wasn’t even there to stop it from happening. It makes sense that he feels an large part of Anja’s suicide is due to him, since he had pushed her away and now can no longer talk to her. It explains why Artie also calls his dad and “murderer” for burning all the comic books, because to him it felt like the only way to get communication from her now that she’s passed away, the only remnants of her life and what she was like as an person is gone. A part of history is now disappeared, which was not only important to Artie in an work-sense with his comic but also personally painful.

Young people are also effected by the loneliness and the lack of figures to look up to in their lives. The epitome of this example is Richieu in Maus, the son who had died during war, being constantly compared to Artie Spiegelman in Maus, where Richieu is said to have been the ideal child who would have grown up to be the doctor. This reveals the inferiority complex that Artie has, to be compared to his older brother, where even though he was dead, Richieu “never threw tantrums or got in any kind of trouble”, thus Artie “couldn’t compete” (Spiegelman 175). He is suffering the consequences of Richieu’s death, he’s the one who has to take care of father after the war, and he’s the one who will never have a strong emotional bond with his father because he simply cannot fathom an fragment of the pain they went through. It’s also an conflicting feeling since Artie wonders of an life where he did have an older brother, and the possibility of them getting along.

In conclusion, it is possible to move beyond generational trauma, but it requires a lot of communication, venting, and cleaning to ‘purify’ it. Artie Spiegelman has shown throughout his comics that he is learning to talk out his problems, like with his wife Mala and his therapist (Spiegelman 202). Acknowledging what the issue and stem root of your trauma is well, but it’s even more beneficial to confront it and make sure feelings don’t get buried and left under the surface.

I think that the generational trauma can severely impact the children of the holocaust survivors even their young grandchildren or great grandchildren today. Generational trauma can stick with families for multiple generations and affect and stick with them even for the rest of their lives. In Maus, Vladek’s son, Artie is a prime example of this. In the specific part where Vladek had gotten rid of Artie’s mothers things, Artie gets angry at him which I believe stemmed from generational trauma as now his mother is entirely gone due to his father’s grief even if he would go on to regret it. This can lead Artie to relating his fathers grief and depression to the idea of his mother’s absence causing him to struggle with trauma from this. “It was the one thing he wanted to make sure I understood, like how to use every available centimeter to get as much stuff packed into a small space as possible. The ice might be thinner than one would like to think.” (Spiegelman) This shows a specific example of Spiegelman’s experience toward generational trauma. This shows an example. Also there is a term called survivors guilt which I think is one of the biggest factors of generational trauma. The children of the survivors may believe that the parents survived just for them to do nothing notable and start to feel as if they aren’t living up to the standard that they should be when surviving something that killed so many others. They start to think as if maybe others who died could’ve had a better life. The people who have had family or ancestors go through some sort of traumatic event, I think, tend to be more empathetic towards people who are facing persecution today. They may be understanding of what they are going through as their family has either gone through that or been in the middle of a traumatic event. It may be common for the people who have generational trauma to live in a new place, as they are most likely to either get out or move on from their past. This allows them to have different perspectives on life as they can find differences between the people where they currently live and where they were before. There are definitely good points to both arguments on whether or not you can move past generational trauma or have to face and acknowledge it. I believe that you need to acknowledge your past generational trauma to find yourself. Generational trauma can shape what person you are and the choices you make, although not completely. In order to move forward you need to look back at what has happened not only in your life but your parents and grandparents to see how their trauma can be impacting you. Doing this I think can allow you to understand your past and view how it still affects you which can lead to a healthier and happier life by facing your past.

Originally posted by purplekiwi on February 11, 2025 20:17

The use of comic form in Maus doesn’t negatively affect the storytelling at all, in fact it improves the comprehensibility of the novel. Art Spiegelman is able to effectively convey the emotional and historical weight of the holocaust in a comic format. Although many argue that a comic is too informal of a medium to depict an event as serious as the holocaust, especially because all the characters are animals, I believe that he does a great job at preserving the gravity of the situation through his art. One example I can think of is the drawing of him at his desk, on top of a pile of dead bodies. Though it is only a drawing the atmosphere of the scene is dark and depressing. It is clear that Art isn’t taking the millions of lives lost lightly, and that he understands the serious nature of his graphic novel. Another serious scene is where we find out how Richieu died. When Vladek’s friend realizes that she and the children are being taken to a camp, there is a close up on her when she decides to kill them and herself. This scene is quite dark and sad; the intensity of the scene is also apparent in how harshly the character is drawn. Art Spiegelman does a great job depicting the raw emotions of his father’s experiences through his drawings. The comic book format also contributes to the symbolism within the novel, and improves the story-telling. In “The Shadow of Past Time” the author argues that Maus being a graphic novel helps it to not “betray the past”, but instead elaborate on the presence of the past. I agree with that idea because throughout the graphic novel Art Spiegelman artfully connects the past and present through his art. Not only does this ease the flow of the narrative and make it less jarring to read, it also visually shows that the past affects the present. One scene mentioned in the article is the hanging of the Jewish girls who revolted in a camp. Spiegelman depicts the girls as hanging in the trees of the forest that he and Vladek were driving through. Symbolically it seems as if Art and Vladek are driving out of the forest and that scene, as if to move on from the past, but we know that isn’t the case. The trauma that Vladek has a result of the holocaust won’t go away no matter how much time has passed. He was impacted by those events for the rest of his life, and that’s shown by the panels of the past melding with the present; it’s as if they’ll never leave.

This person argues that Art Spieglman’s comic form does not take away from the story telling and it actually makes it easier to comprehend for the reader. I’d have to agree with this person because reading the book with a comic format definitely made it easier for me to understand. I think that this idea is interesting because regardless of how you’re telling a story, it’s still a story nonetheless. This person also felt like Art is able to convey emotion through the comic form and that people deem the book as “too informal” which they argue is an incorrect label. I’d have to agree with both arguments to an extent. I think that labeling the book as too informal is definitely wrong, but with so many pictures, the emotion of the really negative parts in the story aren’t as emphasized. I think that this person’s post is well written and their ideas are formulated well. I wouldn’t change or add anything in particular to better the passage. Some other people who chose this prompt also felt a similar way and said that the usage of the comic form isn’t something that would normally be chosen for a Holocaust book so it makes it that much better at telling a story.

Maus is a great graphic novel due to its ability to convey the emotional and historical weight of the events that occurred in the Holocaust in the form of a comic book. By showing visual illustrations and gray colors, Spiegelman was able to create strong representations of the trauma left after the war and deepen the historical narrative of what occurred. Spiegelman’s use of a comic book is easily able to show shifts in time between the past, present and space as it is able to move with ease between the past events Vladek went through, long periods of times like when Vladek was stuck in a camp until he was freed, and present day events where Artie and his father were together having a conversation. The use of a graphic novel style allows for constant and smooth transitions between past and present events. The use of visual metaphors was also commonly used to show a deeper message like how the Jews are the mice and the Nazis are cats, representing how the Jews were easily played with and slaughtered just like a cat would do with a powerless mouse. This use of visual metaphors also helps display the dehumanization at the time where people were subjected into being classified solely on their background or ethnicity. Going back on the smooth transitions between past and present, the use of a graphic style permits to show transition between past and present which further displays and demonstrates the passing down and inheritance of generational trauma as Artie is still impacted by the Holocaust solely because his dad has witnessed and maintained the horrors of the event. The use of a comic form also helps the story reach a variety of audiences from kids to grown adults and even people who experienced the Holocaust first hand. Although the story could never completely depict the extent of the Holocaust and its horror, it is able to give people a sense of what it would’ve been like and even the consequences which are still around from it. The story’s use of Art interviewing his father shows the reader and gives them insight about the psychological effects of Holocaust survivors and how it has had dramatic changes on people and their interaction not only with society, but also with their family. The argument against the suggestion that the medium lacks the seriousness needed to discuss the Holocaust would be that the medium is able to handle and display sophisticated themes of the Holocaust and its horrors in a very emotional way through the story’s use of black and white (gray) imagery and even the use of animals to depict certain groups. Although the use of animals can be seen as unserious, it can be argued that it can make the story more serious as it represents the dehumanization of groups and racism at the time. A comic style also facilitates reading so it makes Maus a very useful tool for education in most grades in order for students to learn about this tragedy and keep the survivor’s stories alive.

Originally posted by Echogecko on February 12, 2025 07:48

I believe that generational trauma has such a big impact on the children of survivors because they carry guilt with them like no other. Throughout Maus, Art Spiegelman shows the life that his father, Vladek, had through the Holocaust and even after. Through the trauma of his father, Art lives a life based on what his father and mother wanted to be. After Vladek and Anja, Art’s mother, lost their first kid Richieu during the Holocaust, they seemed to have wanted Art to fit the image his brother once had. Art said multiple times, especially in the story that he published that he didn’t want his father to read because he knew it would make him feel a certain way. That story involved him sharing feelings about how neglected he felt when all his life, he had to fill the shoes of Richieu. He is required to understand an experience that he never lived, although it was told through the storytelling of Vladek. He shows survivor’s guilt and the guilt of feeling underappreciated as a son because he had to constantly live up to what Richieu could’ve been. This is shown when Vladek explains that Richieu was going to be successful later in life if he hadn’t died.

It also showed that he felt upset that he never got to know his mother like his father did. Having parents who lived through trauma, although they might not realize it, has a big impact on the way their children live. When talking and interviewing his father for the book, he discovered many things about him that completely changed his view of his father. Art, wanting to know more about his mother before she died, couldn’t believe that Vladek burned her journals. He called him a murderer because she erased the only life he could’ve known about his mother. But that is the contrast between a father and a son, they view their actions differently. Vladek did it for himself, he didn’t want to have to keep living that life that he already lost so much in, he had every right to burn Anja’s journals. Art saw it as Vladek destroying the only thing he had left to get to know his mother, which is reasonable, but calling his father a murderer is where he went beyond what he should’ve. Art seemed like he was judging his father a lot when it came to the racist story as well as the way he approached some situations. They both seemed to have different aspects of survival.

Art looked down on his father because he judged him a lot but didn’t fully consider that what he had to do was for survival. Art struggles with guilt and responsibility for trauma that he didn’t experience directly. The storytelling in Maus allows Vladek to have agency over his narrative and get a chance to experience his personal story. In modern times, generational trauma can be shown through oneself or societal challenges overall like poverty, racism, etc. He faces constant tension between his identity and the trauma inherited by his parents. He emphasizes in the novel that generational trauma cannot be erased and art and storytelling can allow one to view sorrow from the survivor’s lenses.

The most compelling idea in this response is how generational trauma inflicts feelings of guilt and isolation in children of Holocaust survivors. It’s interesting to hear about the connections made between Vladek and Artie, especially in the instances where they struggle to come to an understanding with each other and seem distanced due to their differences in experiences. The mention of their tense relationship, partly influenced by their lack of understanding of each other, is a major aspect I’m glad the post touched on. The mention of survivor’s guilt is also a strong argument because there were connections made to certain instances in the graphic novel, for instance when Artie felt that he had to fill Richieu’s shoes as a perfect child. The fact that he had to live up to Richieu’s potential and consequently feeling undervalued is an idea I hadn’t considered before, but it’s very explanatory in regards to Artie’s self-perception. The post also explained how Artie’s form of expression in a graphic novel allowed him to create a more personal story, learn more about his parents’ history in the Holocaust, and gain control over his narrative, which was compelling to learn about. I also like how this post connected generational trauma to greater societal trends like poverty and racism. The post was generally well-written, easy to understand, and concise. However, I feel that this post could expand more on the writer’s thoughts of whether individuals can move on effectively from generational trauma, and specifically how people should handle it and try to recover from trauma or accept it.

Originally posted by traffic cone on February 10, 2025 21:38

Generational trauma leaves the children of the holocaust with a feeling of guilt along with separation from their parents as they will not be able to comprehend the extent of what their parents had gone through. In the case of Vladek and Artie there is an evident divide between the two given their disagreements between one another. The experience Vladek had with the Holocaust had affected Art, shaping who he is as a person, the dynamic between his father, along with his understanding of survival. Vladek's own trauma from the Holocaust impacts his behavior resulting in his constant paranoia and cold nature. This leaves Vladek to be very skeptical creating this previously mentioned.Art is unable to comprehend his father's short temper but feels the severity of Vladek's expectations for him. Additionally arts generational trauma is evident in his strong feelings of guilt as “Art’s sense of guilt is only aggravated further, because he is aware of the fact that he has failed to meet his parents’ expectations and has become a source of disappointment for them” ( Stanislav, 2013).Art has to balance capturing the essence of his fathers story while also balancing his own burdens. With the loss of his mother his feelings of displacement are heightened. He shows feelings of guilt when he compares himself to the victims of the Holocaust explaining that he feels guilty that he has lived a safe and comfortable life compared to the struggles of his parentions. Thus highlighting that generational trauma can be direct actions or even made internally. Outside of the Spigelmans book , generational trauma affects many children of survivor from atrocities as it is common to have guilt and commonly ptsd as a child. I think it's possible to have a combination of both moving on and acknowledgement. To elaborate, I think it's important to understand and comprehend what has occurred. Like in the case of art listening to vladek's story. It may be hard to move beyond generational trauma since the events that occurred can not be changed.

I agree with this viewpoint as I think it highlights the complexity in generational trauma. There is a divide between being angry at the generations before you, and understanding exactly why they act the way that they do. I think the most compelling argument to take away from this post is the idea that trauma and experiences affect our day to day behavior. For Vladek, we see that his anxiety, frustration, and short, cold temper are his key ways of expressing himself. Furthermore, this behavior is directly impactful on how Artie is raised and how he himself acts. While he is able to feel and recognize the severity of Vladek’s expectations, there seems to be a wall holding him back from fully understanding his short temper. I talked about similar ideas in my own post. Specifically, the opening sentences of this post, talking about a separation between children and their parents that ensues from the impact of the trauma. This idea is one I really expanded on, as I believe that generation trauma creates a separation between the child with the trauma itself, as they were not the ones who had experienced any of the pain. I like how this student mentioned Vladek’s wife, Artie's mother, which I had not done. Her loss certainly amplified the pain the Holocaust left on Vladek, while also simultaneously left more confusion and pain in Artie. Her absence is kind of a constant reminder that the trauma left by the Holocaust will never go away.

Originally posted by verose on February 11, 2025 10:56

Despite the simplicity of comic form, and particularly that of Spiegelman’s personal style, Maus effectively captures the emotions and story that it was meant to portray. At its heart, this is because intellectual gravity does not always need to be understood with a million words or overly detailed images. The heaviest subject matters are often conveyed through simpler mediums -- a way to articulate the innateness of human nature. By capturing the events that Spiegelman does, such as when Vladek learns of the public hangings of his smuggling acquaintances, to the scene where he first killed a Nazi soldier in a military camp, the message we are being told is not diluted by commentary of these events’ greater purpose to the narrative, or with visual cues of how the surrounding environment responds. Spiegelman simply captures Vladek’s emotions and thought process in the relatability of his facial expressions, and the dark, dreary atmosphere that the comic is drawn in. The reader must simply take it at its value, with their own understanding of human connection, and a connotation of this history, however little or much they might know about it. Though it may seem counterintuitive for a Holocaust story to be illustrated through such a crude style, in truth it is this manner that makes it such a raw, and at times distressing, read. In particular there is the spread in Maus where Artie is shown his college comic by Mala, and the audience is shown these pages as he reads through them himself. The art here is especially dramatic and difficult to follow along with -- everything is covered in shadow, features are exaggerated, and the capture of Vladek’s grief over Anja’s death is heartbreaking, but taken to such a high degree, it is also meant to be mortifying. It’s in this way that Spiegelman contrasts what Maus could have been with what that comic was -- attacking the reader with its messaging that this is a story about surviving and painting people into extreme, single-faceted versions of themselves. The way Vladek is portrayed here is exactly what a true-to-herat storyteller ought to avoid -- he is presented as having passions and goals centered only on his status of having been a victim, and tempts the audience to not empathize or relate to him, but question the validity of his emotions. The college comic is embarrassing for Artie because it is such a caricature of pain and suffering, and does too much trying to emphasize how awful and bad these events were, rather than the human presence of the people that had lived through them. It further highlights just how ingenius the rest of Maus‘s format is, with its simplistic but intentional art form. This is further supported by “The Shadow of a Past Time,” in which it is said that Spiegelman had intended this outcome as blending between “the presence of the past” with the “stylistic surface of a page” (5), and suggests that the use of art to explore his father’s story is in correspondence with Fredric Jameson’s theory that space -- that is, filling it with form and shade in context of Maus -- is the “perceptual modality of postmodernity” (7). By product, the argument that this medium lacks seriousness is actually more misguided than it is grounded in fact. Maus beautifully unfolds the story of Vladek, and trails back to the generational repercussions of all the themes and difficulties that it explores.

I thought what you said about the purpose of the comic that Artie made in college was really interesting. I never thought about it being what Maus could have been and that it was meant to be an embarrassing depiction of the pain of the Holocaust. I agree that part of what made Maus so effective was that it was more subtle and was able to highlight the experiences of the people and their specific stories rather than the event as a whole. Making the book a comic was so powerful because it allows the reader to see the events just as Spiegleman wanted you to, through the eyes of his father Vladek. Maus also does a good job of showing Art’s interpretations of his father’s experiences and depicts the complex relationship between father and son. Because it is in the format of a graphic novel you are not only able to interpret Vladek’s story, but also how Art grapples with the generational trauma passed down to him from his parents. Although some people can assume that graphic novels are just for children and are not able to convey a sense of seriousness, I agree with Verose that Maus does a great job defying this stereotype. Through pictures, the comic is able to show the reader the experiences of Vladek and Art and the traumatizing experiences of the Holocaust. Spiegleman can evoke great emotion and understanding that would have been harder to do if it was a traditional novel.

Originally posted by TheGreatGatsby on February 09, 2025 19:36

Spiegelman’s Maus takes a new and interesting approach to addressing the Holocaust and telling the story of his father, Vladek, and his survival story. I feel that Spiegelman’s use of the comic form is very effective in conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust. There are some things that can’t be described with words, this is the case, some atrocities mentioned in the graphic novel are just too shocking to be simply described. By using images instead of only words, Speigelman forces the reader to see what he wants them to see. In a traditional novel, the reader may never know exactly what something looked like. Even if the author describes it so well, some people will interpret it differently. However, with a graphic novel, readers are able to see what the author wants them to see. A specific moment in the novel that really speaks true to this is the scene on page 84 which depicts Vladek’s fear to even leave the house since the Nazis have started hanging Jewish people. I feel that this scene really helps the reader perceive the terror Vladek was experiencing. In this case I feel that Spiegelman’s use of comic form helps the reader truly see what Vladek was feeling. The comic form used helps set apart the novel from other Holocaust stories and allows the reader to see exactly what Spiegelman wanted readers to see. The comic form is especially good at conveying the emotional weight of the Holocaust, there are some things that can’t be said with words, and by using images to convey it, the reader really gets a good sense of how those in the scene felt. The graphic novel supports the movement between past and present as well as the integration of the two as Vladek tells his story since Spiegelman used simple scenes from the present to symbolize Vladek’s thoughts on the past. For example, on page 81, Vladek is riding his bike and as he reflects on the war and the loss of his son, Richieu. This simple moment is spun into something deeper, as Vladek talks about it, he starts to peddle faster on his bike, eventually stopping when he tells Artie that he had to give Richieu away. The movement between the past and the present also serves as a way to see how Vladek has been affected by his experiences in the Holocaust. After a scene in which Vladek is shown in the past, we get a scene in the present that reflects how the Holocaust has shaped him and his morals. There are a lot of critics who claim that the medium in which the novel is written downplays the seriousness of the Holocaust, Chute states “When critics of Maus do examine questions of form, they often focus on the cultural connotations of comics rather than on the form’s aesthetic capabilities…[however] ‘More than a few readers have described [Maus] as the most compelling of any [Holocaust] depiction’” (Chute 3-5). It’s clear that the arguments against the novel are mainly surface level, and most don’t dive deeper into how the graphic novel can tell a great story. While most people may feel that the novel could lack the seriousness needed to tell a Holocaust story, the comic form used by Spiegelman allows him to convey emotions more strongly, giving readers a more compelling story.

I find it really interesting how you analyzed Art Spiegelman’s use of comic form. Since Spiegelman himself did not witness the Holocaust, the comic form shows how he himself does not realistically know what the Holocaust looked like. I also like how you said that the comic form allows people to interpret things in the story differently, as history affects everyone differently. I also like what you wrote about the shifts between past and present, as the shifts allow us to see how the past and history affects the present. I think these shifts also allow us to see how the Holocaust affects peoples relationships. In the presentation/account by Jack Trompetter, he also spoke about how the Holocaust affected his relationship with his family and parents. I think Spiegelman uses the shifts to tell a much larger story for Holocaust survivors in general. In addition, I also found your analysis and opinion on the seriousness of the story to be very interesting. I feel like it is wrong for people to feel as if the Spiegelman’s owe more “seriousness” to readers when it is a book about the Holocaust. If anyone is entitled to dictate how serious the Holocaust is, I think it is survivors who are allowed to dictate this.

Originally posted by 01000111 on February 12, 2025 08:14

Maus is a great graphic novel due to its ability to convey the emotional and historical weight of the events that occurred in the Holocaust in the form of a comic book. By showing visual illustrations and gray colors, Spiegelman was able to create strong representations of the trauma left after the war and deepen the historical narrative of what occurred. Spiegelman’s use of a comic book is easily able to show shifts in time between the past, present and space as it is able to move with ease between the past events Vladek went through, long periods of times like when Vladek was stuck in a camp until he was freed, and present day events where Artie and his father were together having a conversation. The use of a graphic novel style allows for constant and smooth transitions between past and present events. The use of visual metaphors was also commonly used to show a deeper message like how the Jews are the mice and the Nazis are cats, representing how the Jews were easily played with and slaughtered just like a cat would do with a powerless mouse. This use of visual metaphors also helps display the dehumanization at the time where people were subjected into being classified solely on their background or ethnicity. Going back on the smooth transitions between past and present, the use of a graphic style permits to show transition between past and present which further displays and demonstrates the passing down and inheritance of generational trauma as Artie is still impacted by the Holocaust solely because his dad has witnessed and maintained the horrors of the event. The use of a comic form also helps the story reach a variety of audiences from kids to grown adults and even people who experienced the Holocaust first hand. Although the story could never completely depict the extent of the Holocaust and its horror, it is able to give people a sense of what it would’ve been like and even the consequences which are still around from it. The story’s use of Art interviewing his father shows the reader and gives them insight about the psychological effects of Holocaust survivors and how it has had dramatic changes on people and their interaction not only with society, but also with their family. The argument against the suggestion that the medium lacks the seriousness needed to discuss the Holocaust would be that the medium is able to handle and display sophisticated themes of the Holocaust and its horrors in a very emotional way through the story’s use of black and white (gray) imagery and even the use of animals to depict certain groups. Although the use of animals can be seen as unserious, it can be argued that it can make the story more serious as it represents the dehumanization of groups and racism at the time. A comic style also facilitates reading so it makes Maus a very useful tool for education in most grades in order for students to learn about this tragedy and keep the survivor’s stories alive.

Your post covered many interesting points. For example, I liked that you talked about the comic’s formatting, how the comic often transitions seamlessly to Vladek’s past compared to Vladek in the present communicating and telling the story to Artie. I didn’t really think much about it, and the fact that it could’ve been an artistic choice, to show the traumatic impact on Vladek now versus when we are seeing him during the Holocaust. Just like with him biking more slowly and pausing when thinking of Richieu who passed away in the war. I thought it was interesting how you mentioned the visual metaphor of animals being a certain ethnicity, and how that played a significant role in the story of an hierarchical society, because although it’s not directly mentioned that they are a certain animal, it’s shown so many times that whatever animal you were born as is the role you’ll play during the Holocaust. That if you were unfortunate enough to become a mouse, you’ll be hunted, even if it’s extremely cruel and unfair.

I also thought it was nice that you mentioned and talked about the accessibility of Maus, and how all sorts of people can easily read the novel and understand it, which goes to show that even a serious topic can become widespread through the use of illustrations and storytelling. I agree that the black and white contrast can be used to show maturity when drawing cartoonish animals as people. Something that I think would’ve improved this post is if you included some examples from the visual novel itself to show the psychological effects it has on the survivors, since there are many instances of this happening when Vladek projects his anger onto his son or his second wife, Mala.

Overall, you had a lot of good points and helped broaden my understanding of the comic with your insight on the comic’s formatting and design choices.