Maus By Art Spiegelm A Literary Analysis

Do authors direct their books to specific readers or do they write for everyone? In the graphic novel, Maus, written by Art Spiegelman, the audience are people who are likely to be familiar with the Holocaust. The reader must have background knowledge of the past and what went on during World War II in Germany to unravel the book's main events. The book's main topics include trauma, past memory, post history, and generational transmission all of which occurred during the rough times of all Jews in the Holocaust. The reader is likely to think of these topics as a raw explanation of what was going on during that time because it is delivered by a first-generation survivor which makes the book more trustworthy and touching. The effects that this

It is about what happened during that time span particularly to the Jews living under the Nazi regime. In order for someone to pick up this book and fully understand it, the reader must have a certain knowledge of what happened during that time. It is vital for the reader to know the relationship the Nazis had with the Jewish people for them to understand the plot and the visuals in the novel. According to Lisa A. Costello in a peer-reviewed article called "History and Memory in a dialogic of "Performative Memorialization" in Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale", "The audience of a book like Maus is likely to have such knowledge of the past". (33) This shows that the reader of this book has most likely done their research on the Holocaust and knows the history behind it. Also, because Maus is a graphic novel it contains many different images that represent the characters and scenes. These images are not like any normal human characters rather the characters in this book are represented by animals as a symbolic form of representation. The Jews are mice, Germans are cats, Poles are Pigs and they were chosen for specific purposes by Spiegelman. In order for the audience to interpret why each group is represented by a certain animal, the reader must have a background knowledge of who was involved in the war during the time and each groups' relation to another. The audience

This historical content demonstrates the holocaust from a first-generation survivor that is still suffering to this day. Maus is a book that teaches the reader what it's like to experience, survive, and live after the Holocaust. It shows how extremely difficult it is to talk about the war because as Vladeck admits in the second volume of Maus that "All such things of the war, I tried to put out of my mind once and for all… until you rebuild me all this from your questions". (Spiegelman 98) This teaches the reader about what happens after a person survives a war: They try to forget it all and not let it affect their lives. Not only does Vladeck find it difficult to speak about the past but "Vladeck's bleeding is his son Artie's textual, visual (as well as emotional) rebuilding". (Chute 203) This demonstrates that Vladeck is not the only one finding it difficult to express what he dealt with during the time but also Artie's present-day hardship trying to bring this book to life by constructing "history in his own language- comics- in frames and gutters, interpreting and interpreting as he rebuilds". (Chute 203) This shows that war does not only affect the survivors but also the survivors' children and everyone around them. It teaches the audience the true effects that war has on people during and after it is done. Because of that, it will get the