Symbolism In Art Spiegelman's In, Cathedral

I’m going to start with Maus by Art Spiegelman because it is one of my favorite graphic novels. The most obvious and blatant use of symbolism is the use of mice as Jews, which leads to the recognizable interpretation of a Nazi anti-Semitic stereotype. To elaborate, Nazi’s literally saw Jews as being less than human, vermin in a sense, and playing off that and turning Jews into actual mice within the story, it becomes clear how absurd this mentality really is. This is taken up a notch when Germans are depicted as cats which are natural predators toward mice. Finally adding another layer to this is the depiction of dogs as Americans – dogs who dislike and hunt cats. By turning people into animals, Art is shining a light on the interpersonal relationships of all of these groups without needing to add more to the story. We understand that Cats hunt and kill mice, and shifting that dynamic to Germans and Jews, he perfectly illustrates the dynamic of the relationship without adding a ton of exposition.

So, I guess, in a sense, the symbolism is vision and sight. Even though the narrator isn’t blind, he essentially is due to his rather closed off “blind” view of people and the world. The actual cathedral that is drawn could be seen as a religious place of worship, a place where people go to find themselves and/or God, and when the narrator finally closes his eyes and draws the cathedral, he has some type of epiphany and finally sees what lies underneath the surface – in way coming to a spiritual revelation of sorts that can occur in