When Art Spiegelman published MAUS I in 1986, he transformed the medium of comics and greatly affected the American literary world. His work experimented with the traditional form of the comic strip at the same time that it altered forever the content associated with the medium. Spiegelman's choice to depict the Holocaust and its aftermath in a medium often associated (rightly or wrongly) with children, cartoons, and simple caricature changed both the landscape of the comic and that of Holocaust representation. Comics or "comix," as Spiegelman dubbed them, were suddenly taken much more seriously than ever before. MAUS I and II appealed to a broader audience than did the conventional comic strip. When MAUS won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 (after the publication of the second volume in the series), Spiegelman's work drew even greater attention. Since the publication of this magnum opus, he has become one of the comix medium's greatest advocates, traveling the country with his Comix 101 presentation and arguing for the importance of the form.Spiegelman was born in 1948 in Stockholm, Sweden. His parents, Anja and Vladek, who appear as central characters in MAUS, were refugees, survivors of the concentration camps and World War II. Using the medium of the comic and the figures of the cat and mouse to represent Nazi and Jew respectively, MAUS tells Spiegelman's parents' stories, as well as his own. After getting his start by editing and writing for the graphic magazine RAW, in which early drawings from MAUS were serialized, Spiegelman went on to draw covers for The New Yorker for a number of years, eventually falling out with the editors due to the political nature of many of his drawings.
How does Spiegelman's medium affect his message in MAUS? Is there something sacrilegious about his representation of the Holocaust? Do we read his work as straight memoir, fiction, or some hybrid in-between genre? Has he chosen the appropriate vehicle for telling this story?
The whole concept of mice and cats being the roles of Jews and Nazis was really strange when Professor Glaser first mentioned it in class, and I had no idea of what to expect when I started reading. However, I found that the whole storyline as well as the way in which it's set up - as a graphic novel - are very appealing. It's really easy to read, as there's a lot less words per page compared to a normal novel, and the pictures give you the images of exactly what's happening, making it much easier to follow.
ReplyDeleteI laugh while listening to Vladek speak, especially when he's complaining about Mala. But on a more serious note, his story thus far is tragic and anything but funny. Even though the characters are animals by means of their heads, they possess just about every other human quality on the rest of their bodies as well as their speech and mannerisms, so I can still relate to them as rational beings.
Before I started the book, I thought for sure that I wouldn't like it. However, once I started reading I couldn't put it down. I don't think I've ever read a comic book, but Maus was an awesome read.
ReplyDeleteIt was not in any way sacreligous because Spiegelman not only depicts the Holocaust in a respectful way, but in an honest way. The medium he chose sets it apart in every way and maybe allows the story to be read by a broader audience.
I like that he included background from his own life and also from the difficulties he had in writing Maus and the hoopla associated with its success. By describing the difficulties he had in writing the book, it shows how serious he was about making Maus the best it could be and honestly relating his parent's story.
It's also interesting to think about the idea of Spiegelman relaying a story that he never experienced. I would imagine it is hard enough to do documentary work, at least in some sense, and convey people accurately, however I can't imagine the task he had to convey such a tragic event without the experience of living it. Furthermore, it must be a difficult task as well to convey his father for who he is. The comic book allows Spiegleman to put the characters into context, such as the reader is able to see where Spiegleman and his father were when they were discussing his father's life, which allows for the reader to interpret in one's own way how to take Spiegleman's father as a person. Since the reader is given not only his father's account of the Holocaust, but also how he told the story and how Spiegleman perceived it, and by setting it up as a comic book, it gives the reader another perspective. It's an interesting element that it is artistically comical, in the sense that there are animals as the characters and so on, for being such a dark subject. I definitely agree with what Professor Glaser said her class before commented on it, that it would be too dark to portray it with the artistry of, say, the comic book inside MAUS.
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