Simple objects can hold a deep meaning at certain points in someone’s life. For example, an infant can become extremely attached to their pacifier, forming emotions of sadness in the infant when the pacifier is not present. As this infant grows up, these feelings of object attachment can reach into the adult years with different objects, such as cars or pictures, and reproduce those feelings associated with the object. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, have characters that display possessive behaviors over objects that clearly hold great importance in their lives, all stemming mostly from traumatic experiences with the Holocaust. In Maus, Artie and Vladek develop a deep connection to materialistic objects, such as the Anja’s diaries and the exercise bike, in order to cope with their unsolved past struggles, as depicted by the body language, facial expressions, and actions of the characters throughout the comic strips. Anja experienced a great deal of tragedy and sadness throughout her life during and continued to haunt her life after the war. To deal with the emotional trauma, Anja would write down her story and her perspective on the war when …show more content…
Artie grows close to the story he is writing and the diaries as a way of fixing the broken relationship he had with his mother. Vladek uses the exercise bike as a mechanism of escaping the memories from the Holocaust that scarred him emotionally and mentally. The body language and actions taken by the characters, which only could have been seen through the use of comics, allow for the reader to see what the author believes he saw or would have seen. The contribution of the comic strips complements the reader’s understanding of how the characters are overly attached to certain