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Through Maus Speigelman Analysis

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Through Maus, author Art Speigelman creates a compelling story of a graphic artist telling the story of the Holocaust through the memories his Jewish father, a survivor, recounts to him. He masterfully weaves tales of the Holocaust in with his troubled relationship with his father, creating a multilayered story of struggle to which readers of any age and circumstance can relate. However, this graphic novel stands apart from any other retelling of the Holocaust due to Speigelman’s portrayal of different peoples as various species of animals rather than humans. Through the story of his father and his drawing of people as animals, Art Speigelman attempts to create an accessible story of the Holocaust. Speigelman’s relationship with his father proves to be the most impactful storyline in Maus, as it is the most relatable to all demographics and serves as a conduit for telling the story of the Holocaust. All readers, including younger children who likely choose graphic novels over the traditional counterpart, can grasp the concept of a strained parent-child relationship, but cannot necessarily understand the more abstract widespread suffering of Jews in World War II. The author then uses this …show more content…

Speigelman satirically draws all mice identically, warning of the dangers of instantly characterizing a person by his race. This decision also simplifies the nuances of the Holocaust, showing the detested Jews as literal vermin being hunted and killed by their Nazi feline predators, which makes the story understandable to even younger readers. However, through his simplification of the Holocaust, Speigelman loses much of the impact his story could have had, as readers do not have the visceral, sympathetic reactions to the suffering of mice that they do to the suffering of humans. In making the story more easily grasped, he cannot convey the enormity of the

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