Trauma Expressed in Graphic Form - Essay Example

The main theme of the book is the Holocaust It narrates Spiegelman's father Vladek's traumatic experiences during and after the Holocaust., at the same time, showing the trauma which the son Artie is going through in the present time. Vladek, a Polish Jew, has survived the Holocaust in Auschwitz, but his experiences have not removed his own racist tendencies.

His wife Anja, Artie's mother, commits suicide soon after they come to America., which leaves a deep scar on Artie's mind. Vladek marries Mala, whom he treats with the same insensitivity. Spiegelman uses allegory, portraying humans of different nationalities as different animals. In Maus, the Jews are depicted as mice, the Germans as cats, the Poles as pigs, the Americans as dogs. There are other animals like the reindeer, the bears depicting the Russians, frogs, the French and the English, fish.

Maus takes its name from the German word for mouse. Mice, which are used to represent the Jews, are small, timid, harmless creatures the qualities which the Jews are supposed to possess. At the same time, they are dirty, disease-carrying vermin according to the Nazis. Mice are also very resourceful, a characteristic of the Jews. Similarly, the Germans are represented by cats, which are always trying to catch, torture, and kill mice. The French are represented by frogs, which are slimy. The French are fond of frog legs as a delicacy.

Representing people as animals has another advantage, as it makes the writer feel detached from the characters, thereby giving him more freedom. It also shows the futility of stereotyping people. Spiegelman has made intelligent use of graphics to narrate the trauma of the Holocaust. The subject of the Holocaust is too disquieting for leisure reading, but Spiegelman's treatment of it makes it readable. The use of the comic book genre to narrate his father's experiences as a Polish Jew in the Europe of the 1930s juxtaposed with the life of Artie in America of the 1970s adds another dimension to the story of the Holocaust.

Maus also portrays some of the positive sides of the people, such as the Spiegelmans' governess Mrs. Motonowa, who hides Vladek and Anja., risking her own life. The book also shows how people lose faith in their fellow human beings. Artie is reluctant to go to his father for comfort, even as a boy. After reading the book, one can understand that the horrors suffered by the victims of the Holocaust were too catastrophic in comparison with their sufferings later. The children of the victims are continuing to experience the aftermath of the Holocaust as a psychological legacy.

Being an allegory, Maus deals with complex human responses to situations in a deceptively simple manner. Juxtaposed between two time-frames, it successfully portrays the experiences of a Polish Jew during and after the war and the pain still felt by the younger generation. Spiegelman richly deserves the Pulitzer special prize he received for the book.