Maus

Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is an incredibly moving story. It is an account of the Holocaust from the point of view of Spiegelman’s father Vladek, a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz. To say this graphic novel is inspiring, ground-breaking, and masterfully told would be a wild understatement.

The choices Spiegelman made in the telling of this narrative were truly ingenious, but none more so than the decision he made to portray the characters in this novel as anthropomorphic animals. By doing this, a level of abstraction descends upon the characters and events, removing them from reality just enough to allow the reader to approach them with a level of subjectivity that would not have been possible otherwise. The psychological impact of cartooned characters and stylized backgrounds that Scott McCloud writes about in Understanding Comics is seen clearly as a result of Spiegelman’s art style. Through this simplicity, the audience is able to process the horrors of the Holocaust more readily than they would have otherwise been able to.

In contrast with his innocent style, the artist does not shy away from breaking the fourth wall. By showing actual pictures of the real people portrayed in this story, an awareness is struck. The fact that this is nothing more than a graphic novel – some lines drawn and inked on a piece of paper – becomes obvious again and again. Spiegelman clearly wants this as (in addition to the photos) there is a scene where Vladek and his wife Anja are hiding in a cellar: she complains about there being rats and Vladek (portrayed, as all the Jews are, as a mouse) placates her by saying that the rats are only mice. In the second installment of the story, an entire page is dedicated to Art’s character trying to decide what animal to portray his wife Françoise as. As much as he wants to tell the story in a way people can more easily understand, Spiegelman refuses to let his audience forget that this is a true account.

The contents of this story, and the context in which it is told, bring a new credibility to the graphic novel as a viable medium for serious material. The fact that it’s told through mice, cats, dogs, pigs, and frogs does not subtract from its sincerity – if anything, it adds to it. Like Will Eisner, Spiegelman caricatures the individuals in his narrative to help the readers more quickly identify the kind of character they are being introduced to. The simplicity is not a result of the lack of sophistication, but the presence of clarity.

In Maus Art Spiegelman achieves a new status for graphic novels. As a result of this story, stories that deal with a large number of characters, various locations, the passing of time, and deep themes are no longer meant solely for traditional novels. Through this work, Spiegelman secures a well-earned podium for graphic novels among the other “serious” media in literature.