Maus Of Art Spiegelman Essay, Research Paper

Art Spiegelman, author of Maus I: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, uses a system of representations to portray his characters. His characters are animals with human-like qualities. The system of representations is extensively developed in the first volume, but briefly, in the second volume, Spiegelman draws human characters wearing animal masks. This divergence comes at a time when Spiegelman is troubled by the politics and publicity brought on by the success of his work. The shift in the representational scheme is Spiegelman’s attempt to show the reality of the situation. He is trying to give the reader a story from the Holocaust but also show the reader what it was like to write such a book. Not only do the media distract him, but also the death of his father, five years earlier. In the bottom frame of page forty-one in Maus II, Spiegelman provides the reader with more reasons for his depression. Spiegelman mentions his mother’s suicide, which he has yet to fully overcome. Another clue, the pile of dead mice underneath his desk, is obvious, but less noticeable, outside his window, is a watchtower and fence that would have been a common sight in the Nazi concentration camps. The bottom frame is Spiegelman’s effort to convey his feelings of entrapment within his work. His feelings of entrapment are accompanied by feelings of inadequacy to convey the effects of the Holocaust on the children of its victims. He is questioning not only his own ability to write, but also the ability of the readers to comprehend his work.