Maus & White

I really like Maus. Art Spiegelman has blown me away with the characters and made the H0locaust more personal for me. In terms of thinking about Nazis and WWII, Maus has made me think about the plight of the Jews then in terms of what I saw visiting the National Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC.

Question - What is the signifigance of using the animals to depict humans in Maus?

Answer - The use of cartoonish animals is to exaggerate the steretypical way humans look at other races while at the same time allowing the reader to place themselves inside the story. As McCloud indicates in Understanding Comics, "when you enter the world of comics, you see yourself". That makes me think of the years I spent reading Spider Man and Daredevil comics, engrossed in the action, but also caught up in the character flaws that allowed me to relate to the protagonists. Even something as simple as the Family Circus or Love Is... single panel comics in daily newspapers connect to me in the same fashion.

In terms of the stereotype, in class we discussed how different animals are almost culturally relevant to use for a nation, for example the French have often been called "frogs" and the Jewish were hard for the Germans to exterminate (like mice). In addition to a cultural reference, the use of animals allows the author to offer criticism at stereotyping in general. Spiegelman seems to play with the fact that dominant groups will often view the minority with a "they all look alike" attitude, which the iconic characters eliminate and magnify at the same time.

Question - How does being pulled into the story, especially a historical account like Maus, help the author create a message of universality of human experience?

Answer - By using the cartoon/icon instead of human forms, Spiegelman eliminates the ability to let the reader consider the events as something that "happened" to the Jews in Europe. Since the reader is drawn into the story, they cannot help but consider their own responses to the historical events in a more real way. When reading historical novelizations like The Diary of Anne Frank, the reader is drawn into the story, but is able to remain detatched. In Maus the names are connected to faces, albeit anthropomorphic ones, the ability to detach oneself from the story is lessened.
This lessening allows White's theory to ring true: "real events assesed for signifigance as elements of a moral drama". By taking a much-serialized and dramatized subject like the Holocaust and adding his personal perspective, Spiegelman freshens the story we all know well, one that is not yet finished, and puts it on a narrative arc. He gives his reality a "mask of meaning", as White says, one that expresses the reality he feels in dealing with his father as a concentration camp survivor but also the readers' own real connection to WWII as well (my own grandfather fought in the war and landed on Normandy beach).