Maus: An anthropomorphic struggle against evil
Art Spiegelman’s novel Maus is a narrative that explores his father’s experiences and struggles of the Holocaust. The novel shows us how the Holocaust has both affected those who lived through it and the children of the survivors. The novel highlights the relationship between Nazis and Jews and exposes what happened in the concentration camps and the good and evil of people from that time.
Vladek Spiegelman, the father of Art Spiegelman, is the protagonist of the novel. He gives a survivor’s account into the Holocaust, giving the reader a raw look into the inhumane conditions of the Nazi death camps. Throughout the novel, the after effects of surviving the Holocaust is exemplified during Maus and Art’s father character is often questioned. The way that he was treated in the Nazi concentration camps during the second part of the novel is contrasted with how he treats African-Americans. The quality of Vladek Spiegelman that is shown the most during the novel is his stinginess. This is a crucial part of the novel as it stops the reader from supporting for Vladek at certain points of the novel. Although Vladek Spiegelman is a very likeable character during the Holocaust periods of the novel, in the years after the war, he has become very solitary with only his second wife as company, who he treats with very little respect. The change of someone that was once good and has now become a shell of what the qualities he once held shows to the audience just how badly the Holocaust has scarred him.
The evils of the Holocaust seem to happen so often and so constantly, that a murder or death of a prisoner or friend of Vladek’s during the story is recollected with little grief. Rollo Romig’s article ‘What Do We Mean By “Evil”,’ highlights how the modern definition of evil has extremely subjective. The article states that an event in time that caused confusion on the understanding of evil was Auschwitz, which takes place in this book. Before World War 2, understanding evil involved three different perspectives: Hegel’s theodicy, Nietzche’s theodicy and malevolence. The novel proves all three of these theodicies, which before World War 2 were said to not be able to happen simultaneously.
Several times during Maus, Vladek recalls the deaths of family and friends, yet the only real sadness or devastation that is explicitly shown in the novel is when he mentions his first wife and Art Spiegelman’s mother, Anja, who committed suicide. The Holocaust has made death and murder a normality for Vladek.
It can be argued that the Holocaust forced Vladek to do immoral or unethical things. In order to survive day after day, his resourcefulness and cunning often relied on the suffering of others. The most obvious resource for survival during the Holocaust for Vladek was access to food and water. He was also forced to protect himself and have other prisoners take the blame for him. However, this is representative of the entire Jewish population in the camps. Almost no Jew in the concentration camps goes out of their way to help a fellow prisoner. Seemingly invaluable objects such as a spoon are stolen if they are simply dropped on the ground. When prisoners were first imprisoned, having clothing and footwear that fit was the equivalent to finding a four leafed clover. Nearing the end of the war, where the majority of Jewish prisoners had either died from starvation or murder and those remaining were on the brink of death. At this point, spilling another prisoner’s food or water would result in a brawl.
Innocent characters in Maus are also forced to die because of the evil in the story. Before Art was born, Vladek’s first son was a boy named Richieu. During the second World War, Vladek and Anja are forced to move Richieu to Zawercie. However, the Nazis ended up raiding Zawercie. The woman that was the temporary guardian of Richieu at the time decided it was better to commit suicide than be forced to endure the torture of the gas chambers in Auschwitz.
Near the beginning of the novel, Vladek recalls his first experiences of surviving a prison camp and how he used his resourcefulness to survive. Although those experiences were not nearly as traumatic as the Holocaust, he still begged to be let free. He tells his son Art that he had dream where his dead grandfather supposedly told him that he would be freed on the day of Parshas Truma. Although Vladek’s grandfather is not God, this can still be linked to the theodicy of god being all powerful. This shows that maybe, God may have in fact influenced this to happen.
In the novel however, the nation that God exists is put into question according to Atheist beliefs, that argue if an omnipotent deity truly does exist, then why does it allow evil to occur, namely the Holocaust. One theodicy that may have occurred in Maus that can contradict this is the Soul-Making Theory. This goes hand in hand with Vladek and the Holocaust as this theory states that the harshness of life gives us a robust texture and character that wouldn’t be possible without an imperfect world. Essentially, this theodicy suggests that reality and the modern world must have evil for mankind to be able to withstand obstacles, similar to a boot camp. Vladek’s experiences from the Holocaust is an extreme example of the Soul-Making Theory, in which his experiences from surviving the death camps have moulded him to become who he is as both a father and husband.
The morality of individuals in Maus is both rare and valuable. Vladek was a rare case of someone that showed compassion and empathy towards fellow prisoners in the camps of Auschwitz. After seeing his friend Mandelbaum’s situation, Vladek tried to help him out as much as possible. The uniform that the guards of the camp had given him did not fit him. One of his shoes were too large, while the other too small. His pants were too loose, and he was forced to hold them up the entire day to stop them from falling, along with the tiny shoe. A guard that was fearful of Germany losing the war decided upon having Vladek teach him English so that there would be a chance he survived the war. As a repayment for English lessons, the guard allowed Vladek to change into clothes that fit him. Remembering the hardship that Mandelbaum had everyday with his uniform, Vladek took a belt and fitting shoes. This could have cost Vladek his life as he was essentially asking for more than he was entitled. The kindness and empathy that Vladek displayed was uncharacteristic of any Jewish prisoner in the novel and really makes the reader surprised and heart warmed.
Unfortunately, the following panels in the novel portray how Mandelbaum had died. Unlike Vladek, Mandelbaum was unable to escape the Holocaust with his life. Vladek believed that he had been murdered by a guard who had thrown away Mandelbaum’s cap. As Mandelbaum ran to retrieve, the same guard shot him because he was “trying to escape.” The guard was then rewarded with a few days’ vacation for preventing an “escape.” Out of all the acts of evil that are committed in Maus, this act is probably the most universally evil thing that is shown in Maus. What made this scene even more confronting was that Vladek mentions that acts like this happened quite often in the camps, with guards ending another person’s life simply for relaxation and sport.
Maus also has a constantly reoccurring motif is anthropomorphism or having animals given human like traits. For example, Nazis and Germans are represented as cats, Jews as mice, Americans as dogs, Polish as pigs and French as frogs. However, it is the Nazi and Jewish people’s animal counterparts that are truly significant. Vladek is running from the Nazis through the entire novel. This is comparable to a game of cat and mouse, which may be why Art Spiegelman chose to illustrate humans as animals rather than cats. This also makes sense with the Americans who are shown as dogs, which are typically associated to chase cats the way cats chase mice.
A subtler motif that Spiegelman includes and is apparent throughout the entire novel is the way that the letter ‘s’ is stylised. The way the author has written it is similar to the shape of a lightning bolt. The actual meaning behind this is the SS symbol which represents the Schutzstaffel, who are group of Nazis that were in charge of controlling the German citizens during World War 2.
Surprisingly, Maus highlights how some Nazi guards in the concentration camps actually help Vladek and other Jewish prisoners. Although many do this simply to gain something in return such as food or jewellery, there are a select few Nazis that actually show respect and goodness towards Vladek. During page 221 of the novel, Vladek has managed to repair a shoe for a Gestapo, who gave him a sausage as a reward for his job. This shows restorative justice in play, where the offender, in this case Vladek, meets the victim, in this case the Gestapo. From this meeting, gratitude and empathy are felt in both people, creating a fluidity of goodness, or for Vladek’s case, being given food. This is represented again by Mancie, a character that helps form communication between Vladek and Anja when they are being held in separate concentration camps. After using food as payment for Mancie, she consistently gave Vladek information on how Anja was coping and how she was being treated. The compassion and loyalty shown by Mancie once again exemplifies restorative justice.
Maus gives readers confronting imagery and storytelling that makes every page unpredictable. The themes of good and evil are plainly shown, but the reasoning and intentions behind the acts that are done by characters from the novel are both admirable and deplorable. Vladek and Art Spiegelman are both affected by World War 2, whether it be directly or consequentially. Maus does not hold back on alienation and is not afraid to show the good and bad of society’s approach to prejudice and racism that are still represented in 2018.