learntoquestion ltq discussions

Questions to Consider:

Is Spiegelman’s use of the comic form effective in conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust? How does the format of the graphic novel support movement between past and present, and integration of the two, as Vladek tells his story? What is the argument against the suggestion that the medium lacks the seriousness needed to discuss the Holocaust?

Word Count Requirement: 350-500 words

Sources to Reference:

Please refer to the ideas, either using a description, quote or paraphrasing, from Maus I or II in addition to the other source here in your response.

Maus I (Spiegelman,1986)

Maus II (Spiegelman,1991)

“The Shadow of Past Time”: History and Graphic Representation in Maus (Chute, 2006)

Spiegelman’s use of the comic form is effective in conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust, but only to a certain extent. It depicts tough and graphic scenes that Vladek, his father, experienced in the Holocaust and for the reader it can almost make them feel guilty seeing a whole group of people be so brutally attacked and mass murdered. In “The Shadow of Past Time”: History and Graphic Representation in Maus, in an interview, Spiegelman states, “I’m literally giving a form to my father’s words and narrative, and that form for me has to do with panel size, panel rhythm, and visual structures on the page.” The purpose of Maus was for Vladek’s experience to be shared with the world and truly convey the horror of the Holocaust. An argument that says the medium lacks the seriousness needed to discuss the Holocaust may be that the use of animals to represent different ethnicities takes away from the event, but I don’t agree with this. Although the use of animals gives it a more cartoon feel, the different animals representing different ethnicities shows the stark contrast between different cultures and how some ethnicities viewed others differently. Germans were depicted as cats, and Jews were depicted as mice, similar to a cat and mouse game because cats prey on mice. Overall, the comic form may be seen as simplifying what the Holocaust truly was, in the sense that it will not be able to truly put into perspective what the Holocaust was and the trauma that so many survivors, even generations after, still feel. On page 82 of Maus, Spigelman shows many Jews being beaten in the train station while Vladek and others watch them screaming and the sound of gunshots. The comic form of this does not take away from the cruel violence against Jews, but rather shows the reader how brutal it was. In Maus II, Artie shows feelings of guilt when expressing the Holocaust in his writing. Although artistic expression does portray the heavy and horrific moments in history, it will never compare to the immense trauma and grief that survivors and generations after deal with.

Spiegelman’s use of the comic form is effective in conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust because typically when I see or read comic books they are usually entertaining or funny in a way, but in Maus it was the opposite but it was very well put together. Maus I and II uses imagery to show the murders, the scenery, the people, and anything you would imagine while listening to Vladek’s story. He used comic form to show the trauma, the vivid memory, and the reasons he survived his journey throughout the Holocaust by portraying these books as graphic novels to make readers have a better visual and reading interpretation. This book is well drawn and written to show an experience of a survivor and helps readers now when they want to visually learn about the Holocaust because of the harsh and traumatizing aspects. The format of the graphic novel supports movements between past and present because they are both easily depicted as you read the comic. Both Maus I and II show vivid detail such as in Maus I on page 56, it shows them working on the mountains and expressing how hard it is. The graphic novels use vivid imagery to show the readers as if they were experiencing the same journey. The past was Vladek’s journey throughout the Holocaust and everything that he experienced such as murders right in front of him, losing people, going from place to place, hiding, starving, and doing anything he can to not get caught. The present was Vladek telling his story to Artie, so that he could write about it for him and tell the world what life was during the Holocaust and what happened to people as a viewer. In “The Shadow of a Past Time” Hillary Chute says, “In this Holocaust representation, the artist’s hand is the visibilized link between the personal voice of the primary witness and its translation, the voice of the secondary witness: as such, Spiegelman’s hands are frequently pictured in Maus, and his “artistic hands” are the subject of conspicuous conversation between him and his father.” This shows that there are clear representations of Artie drawing the panels, the conversations with his dad to listen to his story, and the translation of how it went from Vladek into the comic. The argument against the suggestion that the medium lacks the seriousness needed to discuss the Holocaust the black and white that Spiegelman uses to portray throughout the graphic novel to show the harsh and serious times during the time. Black and white can also represent fear and trauma, which is exactly what Maus represents.

Art Spiegelman uses the comic format of Maus in order to emphasize the dark nature and fear of the Holocaust. Through the inclusion of Vladek’s life before the Holocaust, the audience can give him emotional value and attachment in order to understand his suffering. Vladek’s depiction of Jews and Germans as mice and cats emphasizes the contrast between victim and perpetrator. Mice are helpless against cats, as they are too weak and scared to fight against them. The victimization of Jews in Maus delivers the grave message of the plight of Jews in a way that reality cannot emphasize. On page 85, the panel where three mice are hung from ropes with their feet hanging carry lots of messages. This scene shows the extremes that Nazis were headed towards and the unfair conditions that Jews were experiencing. Each person hung had their own connections with Vladek, families, and importance in society. Another powerful visual scene is on page 117, where Anja’s father is begging to be saved by being snuck out of a building. Haskel, Vladek’s cousin, wasn’t willing to take the risk of sneaking out Anja’s parents because they were too old. As her father looks out the window in despair, groaning and aware of his imminent death, the audience can see the distress that he goes through. He pounds on the window to be saved, yet there was no possible way that his suffering could’ve been avoided. There are certain scenes that use black shading to highlight a sinister and eerie setting, whether it’s in physical places or used in facial expressions, which especially cannot be replicated unless it is within a visual format. Overall, the comic format breaks the borders of literature and can directly show audiences the realities of the Holocaust without leaving the imagination to interpret numbers or words. As Vladek tells his story to Art, Maus seemingly swaps between the past and present in panels. Vladek’s survival account becomes an ongoing struggle rather than an event of the past, as past trauma directly affects his anxieties, frugal personality, and relationships with others. In Maus II, Art also grapples with his own guilt and the burden of his father’s past. He sometimes feels like he wasn’t enough compared to Richieu. The book shows that the trauma of the Holocaust is process that will affect generations to come.

Showing someone a story instead of simply telling them can be way more effective than a typical story. Art Spiegelman’s Maus is no exception to this concept. Not only does he use comics, he portrays the animals as mice rather than humans. Using this format, he is more easily able to transition between the current day and the stories of his father’s past. Everything is visually more connected, which highlights how recent the Holocaust is for the people involved and their children.

Spiegelman is also able to use his drawings to symbolize the rough relationship with his father and how the Holocaust impacted that. For example, in Maus I on page 6, the last panel shows Vladek and Art in a very large, empty room. This is one of the first times we see him and his father as well, and the vast emptiness displays how distant Vladek and his son are from each other. This is well due to the Holocaust, and how Vladek never truly recovered. Art is able to use imagery in this format, which adds complexity to the story and a story as large and horrible as the Holocaust could definitely use this kind of format.

There is also something to be said about visualizing terrible events rather than being told about them. For example, on page 63 there is a panel where the Nazis execute war prisoners in the forest and leave the bodies to rot. Being told something like this is no doubt emotional, but actually seeing the prisoners defenseless, on their knees with their hands behind their head and then slumped over in the pit is much more effective at getting the reader to feel certain emotions.

Some argue that this style of writing is too “childish” or reduces the impact of the Holocaust. They say that this period of time is too serious to represent it through a comic strip. This idea comes from the fact that generally unimportant pieces of work, such as comics, implement the same types of design that Spiegelman did. However, just because it is common in children’s work does not mean that it cannot be used effectively in order to convey other ideas

Maus by Art Spiegelman uses a cartoonish but, at the same time, realistic form of expression throughout the text. The seriousness of the text can go from discussing the horrors of Auschwitz or to discussing something as trivial as what is for dinner. He uses a colorless black and white palette with a few grey notes as a side. By expressing such events in black and white, it makes it more serious. He also uses different animals to describe the different peoples of different countries; he makes it seem serious by avoiding direct ties to the German people; he takes the blame solely off them. For example, in the second chapter in Maus, Artie describes how he handled depression when his father died and how the book had so many things going on in life, he includes an image of dead bodies piled up, indicating a somber and deep tone. The book's comic structure with free-flowing, often disconnected panes of art supports a more open, atypical plot structure, and Artie uses that to his advantage. He often switches from discussing his father’s life, to his attempts to write about it, to text about his father’s experiences in the Holocaust, as pictured on page 47 of the second part of the text. He also does this many times to cue in the reader on the plot, and help people understand what he went through with his father. Earlier in the text, he goes back many times to conversations with his father that were argumentative, but one could say are necessary for developing the text, specifically the character of Vladek. Although one could argue that the medium lacks seriousness because comic books have been stereotypically used as kids' texts, not ones that discuss the genocide of over six million people. In "The Shadow of Past Time”: History and Graphic Representation in Maus, I quote a quote that would really support this argument: “To write poetry about Auschwitz is barbaric.” Basically, this comes to mean that writing about the place where thousands were killed is wrong. I wholeheartedly disagree; it is our duty to write about these places to make people remember them and serve as reminders of what can happen when it all goes wrong.

The use of the comic form in order to tell the story of the Holocaust, or any story that holds significant weight for that matter, is highly unconventional. Because of this, it bears the question of whether this medium is effective in conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust, but I feel that it definitely does.

One way that I think that the comic form conveys the emotional weight of the Holocaust is simply how it is able to capture each scene with the intensity that it actually possessed. For example, in the early scenes of volume II where Vladek is describing his arrival at Auschwitz, Vladek’s figure isn’t highlighted among everyone else around him, as it typically is. Therefore, he is just one person surrounded by a sea of others, all of which are drawn with panicked and terrified facial expressions. This not only highlights the intense fear and horror that this situation contained for so many, but it also connects Vladek’s story back to the Holocaust at large, and all of those whose stories won't be told in the years following. This therefore highlights the magnitude of the Holocaust, and also paints a picture of how those who experienced it were feeling, which I think is effective in conveying the emotional weight of the Holocaust.

In addition to this, I also feel that the comic form adds a uniqueness to the storytelling that also plays a role in conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust. A great example of this is highlighted in “The Shadow of Past Time: History and Graphic Representation in Maus,” which points out the scene in which Vladek is telling the story while riding his stationary bike. Vladek’s figure is split up among the different panels in the page, which is interwoven within his stories of the Holocaust. This shows how the past has become intertwined with the present, and how despite the fact that many years have passed, the Holocaust will always continue to have a lasting impact on the survivors and those around them. I think that this creative and indirect way of portraying Vladek’s story is something that could only be captured in comic form, which shows the value of this medium.

Therefore, I think that despite how unconventional it is, the comic form does a really great job of portraying the Holocaust’s emotional and historical weight as it paints an accurate picture of each scene that may not have been done so well in just words, and it allows for more forms of storytelling than just through the text.

Art Spiegelman’s use of the comic form in Maus is not only effective but necessary for conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust. The visual structure of the graphic novel allows the story to move between past and present in a way that mirrors how Vladek experiences memory. His history does not sit behind him. It interrupts daily life and shapes every interaction he has with Art. When the panels shift from Vladek describing the loss of Richieu to a present moment of him exercising, the reader feels how the past sits inside the present. The comic form makes this movement immediate because the two timelines appear side by side on the page. Hillary Chute notes in “The Shadow of Past Time” that Maus uses the page as a layered space where history is never linear. The gutters between panels become reminders of what cannot be fully recovered or spoken, this is something that words alone cannot create with the same amount of weight. The animal metaphor, often criticized as being too simple for a subject as serious as the Holocaust, actually deepens the impact of the narrative. By drawing Jews as mice and Germans as cats, Spiegelman exposes the absurdity of racial categories and the dehumanizing logic behind them. In Maus II, the scenes where characters wear animal masks make this even clearer. Identity becomes something imposed rather than natural. The claims that comics lack the seriousness needed to address the Holocaust ignores how Maus uses the medium to confront trauma without intensifying it. The stark black and white drawings, the feeling of being cramped during panels of hiding, these create a sense of fear and pressure. It prevents the story from becoming graphic in a way that would distract from its message. The comic form lets Spiegelman show this visually, which makes the idea more unsettling and more direct. In the end, the comic form allows Maus to hold multiple perspectives at once. It captures the horrors of the Holocaust, the difficulty of remembering, and the complicated relationship between Art and Vladek. Rather than reducing the seriousness of the subject, the graphic novel format becomes the reason the history feels alive and deeply human.

Maus is a comic book which uses the motif of mice in a powerful and deeply effective way. Its depiction of the holocaust is unique in its comic form, but it is specifically this format that has allowed Speigelman to convey and spread such an impactful story. The graphic novel gives readers visual figures that help them imagine events that are otherwise extremely difficult to comprehend. The Maus story is a way of depicting the undepictable, while still acknowledging the inability to capture the suffering of the Holocaust. The book focuses on allowing the reader to have space to fill in the gaps themselves and confront it themselves, especially through the portrayal of animals. For example on page 83 of Maus I, Spielgelman depicts three jewish men after being hanged, in the form of mice. This image is frightening and stands out as an image and helps to portray cruelty while also leaving room for the reader to expand further on this image. This comic form doesn’t weaken the seriousness of the holocaust but rather forces readers to engage with the meaning behind the images. Maus’ way of depicting cruelty also allows the novel to be visible to a wider audience. Violence is a common occurrence throughout the text, such as on page 61, where Jews are shown being shot at. While this is violent, Spegleman's approach allows the depiction of such brutality without overwhelming the reader. Additionally, Speeglman uses the powerful symbolization of animals. Jews are represented as mice, Naziis as Cats and other groups as different animals, visually portraying the dehumanization caused by Nazi racial ideology. The characters are often seen as wearing these animal distinctions as masks further showing how the depiction of characters as animals also helps to show the manmade borders that humans have created of racial judgments and prejudices. Additionally, the story ties together the past, present and future in the best possible way utilizing both Vladek Spiegelman's story and his father's story. Valdek struggles to live up to being the perfect son for his father and has patience for him while his father struggles to escape the memories from the past. An elaborate portrayal of this is when his father is riding the bike. The bike seems important as it symbolizes his memories. He is pedaling but going nowhere since he is stuck with the memory and trauma from his past. Overall the comic form of mouse, which uses animals to depict an activity is effective, important and thought provoking.

I do think that Spiegelman’s use of the comic form is effective in conveying the emotional and historical weight of the Holocaust. To be clear, this does not mean that the true emotions and feelings themselves can be properly conveyed. I think that that is a near impossible if not truly impossible task. However, the simplicity of the comic expressions in itself acts as an admission that all forms of art as an effort to express those emotions would be inadequate. In this way, one truly understands that the weight and burden of that trauma is not something that one ever will understand.

The format of a comic novel makes it very easy for Spiegelman to express the past and the present together. The presence of boxes and subsequent room for creativity means that the literal lines between past experiences and present effects can be clearly drawn and shown. In this way, Spiegelman is able to more clearly connect the effects of the traumas of the holocaust to their impacts on survivors today. For example, all of Vladek’s flashbacks are followed or preceded by events in which he expresses intense emotion and feeling.

The suggestion that the comic format is somehow not serious enough for such a heavy topic can be easily countered. One could argue that no medium is truly effective in its individual self in expressing the traumas of the holocaust and the subsequent effects. However, one must understand that pain and experiences such as those discussed in Maus must be and ought to be expressed in many different ways. As stated in ‘The Shadow of Past and Time’, “Maus’s contribution to thinking about the ‘crisis in representation’ I will argue is precisely in how it proposes that the medium of comics can approach and express serious, even devastating, histories. Expecting such an experience to be confined to one medium means that you expect the holocaust to be easily expressable, or at least that it can and should be confined to that medium as the only form of expression. Not only does that show the clear presence of ignorance surrounding the topic, but it shows the clear tendency to lean toward simply facts and words, when such a tragedy cannot be expressed so easily.