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Summary The Complete Maus - Art Spiegelman
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Summary of The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman with explanations about the main characters, themes and symbolism.
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MAUS – ART SPIEGELMANSummary
Art Spiegelman, a young Jewish-American cartoonist, arrives for a visit at the
home of his father, Vladek, after a long estrangement. Vladek is sick and
unhappy, stuck in a bad marriage to a resentful woman named Mala, and still
mourning the loss of his first wife, Anja, to suicide ten years earlier. Artie and
Vladek have a tense relationship, but Artie has determined to write a comic book
about his father’s life. Vladek, a Polish Jew who immigrated to New York after
World War II, is a Holocaust survivor. Along with Anja, and most of their family
members, he endured life in the ghettos and concentration camps of Nazi-
occupied Poland.
Through a series of interviews over more than two years, Vladek tells Art his
stories. He begins in prewar Poland, when he meets and marries the brilliant,
charming daughter of a wealthy manufacturer: Anja. The two live happily
together in the city of Sosnowiec, surrounded by their families. When war
breaks out in 1939, Vladek is called to the front as a Polish soldier. Vladek is
captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war, and spends months in a forced
labor camp before escaping and returning home to Sosnowiec. Reunited with his
family — which includes, by this time, a young son named Richieu — Vladek
finds that the German invasion has had a dramatic impact on the situation of
Poland’s Jews. In the months following his return to Sosnowiec, violence against
Jews becomes a common occurrence. Both German Nazis and Christian Poles are
eager to marginalize and dehumanize Jews. Soon, Jews are forced to give up their
homes and move into ghettos: segregated neighborhoods where they face
constant surveillance, as well as random violence, from soldiers and police.
As more Jews are herded into ghettos, the Nazis begin deporting people to
concentration camps — most notably, to Auschwitz. At this point, people are
only beginning to learn the extent of the atrocities perpetuated in these camps:
starvation, forced labor, and — most shocking — the mass murder, in gas
chambers designed to maximize efficiency, of Jewish prisoners from all across
Europe. The Spiegelmans send Richieu to a different ghetto, in the care of his
Aunt Tosha, where they believe he will be safer. This decision turns out to be
disastrous. When Tosha learns that the Nazis are planning to “liquidate” her
ghetto and send all its residents to Auschwitz, she poisons herself and Richieu —
as well as her daughter and niece, who are also in her care — to avoid the
horrible fate of the gas chambers.
Eventually, the Nazis decide to “liquidate” the Srodula ghetto, where Vladek and
Anja are living. Though Vladek has lost his parents and most of his siblings by
this time, Anja still has her parents and her nephew, Lolek. The family manages
to evade capture for a short time, but a stranger soon discovers them and turns
them over to the Nazis. Within a few weeks, the family has been completely
splintered. Mr. and Mrs. Zylberberg are sent to their deaths in Auschwitz, and
Lolek — who believes his skills as an electrician will make him valuable, and so
prevent the Nazis from killing him — surrenders himself for transport to the camp
soon after. Vladek and Anja manage to evade capture by hiding out in bunkers
and the homes of sympathetic Polish Christians, but they are caught after Vladek
makes plans to flee the country with the help of Polish smugglers, who turn them
over to the Nazis. After years of hiding, Vladek and Anja are sent to Auschwitz.
, Symbols
Mice: in representing the Jews as mice, Spiegelman is playing off the anti-Semitic
stereotype of Jews as vermin or pests, as less than human. He also plays off a
pun on the German verb ‘’mauscheln’’, which is derived from the Yiddish
‘’Mausche’’ on several levels. In German, the verb is a derogatory term that
translates into ‘’to talk like a Jew’’ or ‘’to swindle like a Jew’’. The verb
‘’mauscheln’’ literally contains the word ‘’maus’’. Vladek’s influency in multiple
languages – English, French, Polish, Yiddish and German – gives him a key edge
in many situations.
Cats: the Germans are cats; predators that prey on the Jewish mice.
Dogs: the Americans are dogs who save the Jewish mice from the German cats.
Frogs: the French.
Moths: the Gypsies.
Pigs: the Poles; the Nazis sometimes referred to the Poles as pigs.
The mice are not universally good, nor are the pigs universally good or bad. Mice
can pass for other animals by wearing pig masks or cat masks. The allegory falls
apart at times when the animal-humans deal with actual animals.
Breaking frames: the frames of the panels are often stretched or fractured at
key moments in the text. Their images spill out into the gutters. Sometimes the
frames break apart in order to show how events in the past ‘’bleed’’ into the
present. For example, Vladek’s pills fall outside the frame when he gets
distracted by imitating the arm twitch Art had as a baby. Another way that Maus
breaks the frame is when it places actual photographs on the page, for example
the photograph in Art’s comic strip. The sight of the real, human figures and their
animal counterparts is a little uncanny. It’s as if the book refuses to let its readers
escape into a fictional fantasy world; the real world, where real people suffer and
die, constantly bleeds onto the page.
Father/son relationship: Art isn’t the only one seeking a relationship with a
father, nor is Vladek the only father figure he seeks out. Vladek seeks out many
father figures – his own father makes an appearance, but also his wealthy father-
in-law, the grandfather in his dream and the rabbi at the POW camp. These father
figures are voices of hope for Vladek; they laud his abilities. Art doesn’t have a
relationship with Vladek, who seems to think less of Art for not living up to his
expectations. Art feels very alone, because he is the only family member without
any war history.
Themes
The Holocaust and the responsibility of its survivors
Art, whose Jewish family was almost completely annihilated during the Holocaust,
feels compelled to preserve his father’s memories out of respect for the suffering
Vladek endured, and in an effort to ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust are
not forgotten. He uses Maus to explore his own troubled relationship to his
parents and his Jewish identity. Art’s mouse head creates a connection between
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