One of the most apparent instances of symbolism in Maus is the animal-headed characters. Anthropomorphic animals are, of course, nothing new to the world of comics; we don’t think twice about the absurdity of talking rodents and we easily accept the almost cliché relationship between cats and mice that we find in Maus. But unlike Tom and Jerry, whose roles as animals are portrayed only literally, Art’s animal heads are used to represent the stereotypes associated with the different groups in the social arena of the time. The Germans are represented by cats, instinctive hunters of Jewish mice, who in turn are seen as as vermin to be exterminated; this association of mice with Jews may be based on the German anti-Semitic propaganda film, The