Maus Literary Analysis Essay

Maus Literary Analysis Essay
4. Which social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text? While reading the graphic novel of Maus, Spiegelman displays the story and experiences of his father Vladek during the Nazi Holocaust. Spiegelman also shows the marginalization of Jews done by the Nazis. The marginalization occurs through many forms including forced labor, capturing, forcing to live in harsh conditions and extreme punishments sometimes over nothing. In MAUS, forced labor appears in many times from the smallest jobs to the biggest jobs. On page 50 of ‘MAUS I’ it shows in the panels the Jews being captured by the Nazi’s then being forced to carry the Nazi’s dead and injured soldiers to the Red Cross trucks for them to be transferred to their base and infirmary. Once they had finished, they were taking to concentration camps to

In ‘MAUS I’ on page 53 the dialog and illustrations it shows the Jews at the concentration camps during the winter in summer uniforms and a thin blanket trying to keep warm in the tents that conserve no heat while the Polish inmates resided in the heated cabins. Just to get clean Vladek, a Jewish inmate, risked hypothermia by bathing in the river just to be clean. Just seven pages later on page 60 the Nazi’s tricked the Jewish inmates into thinking their free and that they're going home so they would get on a train to transport them to another camp. One group of them were released as a prisoner of war, which protected them from being killed. Meanwhile, another group that wasn’t released were lead into the forest and executed. On page 80 of ‘MAUS I’ the illustration panels shows random Jews outside a train station being beaten and killed by Nazi’s soldiers for hours. While Vladek had to hurry onto his train and not panic to avoid joining the rest of the beaten Jews. Some of the Jews had papers while some didn’t but to the Nazi soldiers they did not