Maus - I

The book is really about two things, the first - a father/son relationship between a young man named Art and his Dad, a holocaust survivor from the Second World War called Vladek. The second part is a recollection of his Father’s experiences during the War for Art to use as inspiration for a comic book.

The comic itself is drawn in a simple style, with the characters all represented by different animals. For example, the Jews are mice, while the Nazi’s are evil looking cats. It is not a subtle tool that he is using, but its clarity makes the point clear and unambiguous. Later, masks are utilized - for example, when Vladek recalls a time in which he had to pretend to be polish, he is shown wearing a pig’s face as a mask.
The comic begins with young Art who is rollerskating. Vladek’s reaction to Art’s friends leaving him when he skates break sets up the dynamic between the two of them quickly. For Vladek, everything after his experiences can only be seen through the eyes of a man who has seen and experienced the things that he has. He compares the problems of a child losing his friends to his experiences in the Holocaust, to friendship being only truly determined after 5 days of hunger. It really shows how prominent it is for Vladek and how much time he spends thinking about the past. He really can’t move on. It seems apparent that Art feels a level of guilt for the neglect of his father on his part, but at the same time neglects him for a reason - that he really can’t stand him so when they talk it quite quickly becomes apparent that all Art really wants to know about is the past, specifically the holocaust. We also see during this chapter Vladek take large amounts of pills, mostly vitamins to keep himself healthy. This seems to tell us that one of the things that Vladek took from his experience is that survival is not easy, and you can only really rely on yourself to get through it all.
From here on out we begin to learn more and more about Vladek’s experiences and we pick up a few more traits, his resourcefulness in the war has now manifested itself into a inability to throw anything away. It represents the way, which is different to that of Anja and Mala, that he managed to survive. He will continue to use them, but they have outdated themselves in modern times, when he no longer has to use his wits just to survive. It is part of what makes his relationship with Art so strained.
For me, one of the most interesting things about this whole comic is the style choice and visual language that is used. It is a very symbolic piece and I can understand why as a work of art it got a large amount of coverage. It has a lot of depth to it, wrapped up in a story that is not an easy topic to do well. It is all too common to approach works on the holocaust and automatically resort to the tragic victim and I think while no doubt Vladek is a victim, he is not particularly likeable either. As such, I think it was a brave choice, but ultimately is what makes the character interesting and real.
Pt. 2 Based on Book II will be coming. (I only just managed to find a copy!)
P.S. God damn backstabbing smugglers am I right?