Why Should People Read Maus?

by Samantha Reddick

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (1991) by Art Spiegelman

With the surge of anti-Semitic hate crimes, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus still holds relevance and should be considered essential reading. Maus is a multigenerational story about the trauma that Holocaust survivors pass on to future generations of Jews. The comic feels deeply personal because it explores the first-hand interviews between Spiegelman and his father. The graphic novel offers audiences a subversive genre-defying experience that is difficult to describe to someone who has never read it before. Maus is tough for some to grasp because it disputes the traditions of Holocaust literature. By taking the form of a comic, Spiegelman rejects the belief that Holocaust narratives should only be told in “refined” mediums of art that are deemed appropriate. Spiegelman challenges audiences through postmodernism which pushes readers to ask questions about concepts deeply embedded in culture, such as history, art, and storytelling. 

Postmodernism is hard to define since it aims to break established genre norms. Audiences have a hard time accepting this notion since many people like the convenience of classifying a story as a single genre. Postmodern stories like Spiegelman’s graphic novel frequently end up as casualties of genre mislabeling. Since the main characters are anthropomorphic animals, Maus often gets reduced to a piece of fiction. The fiction label undermines Maus since it unintentionally implies a lack of truth in the narrative being told. Regardless of their appearance, these characters are stand-ins for real people giving their testimonies of real events. Due to the gravity of the Holocaust, people must remember these nonfiction elements of Maus. People also wrongly label the graphic novel as a biography or autobiography rather than a memoir. Biographies and autobiographies reflect on the entire span of someone’s life, while memoirs look at a specific period through the lens of one overarching theme. Maus is a memoir because Spiegelman and his father only recall the parts of their lives related to the Holocaust. These common misconceptions about Spiegelman’s Maus reaffirm the graphic novel’s complexity. Spiegelman defies the arbitrary boundaries of genres by subverting expectations within and outside the medium of comics. 

A major tenet of postmodernism that Spiegelman incorporates is the idea of subjective experience being more honest than “objective” fact. Maus highlights that history and nonfiction will always be more than just fixed facts as long as real people are involved. Unlike textbooks, Spiegelman evokes emotions that are often missing from “objective” discussions about the Holocaust. Spiegelman thoroughly takes the time to showcase how subjectivity is attached to every memory of the past. One moment that stands out is when Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, confesses not remembering the famous orchestra at Auschwitz. The panels shift from a visible image of the orchestra to an image that obstructs the orchestra from the reader’s gaze (Page 214). Spiegelman recognizes that the subjective nature of testimonials is a crucial part of Holocaust literature. 

Maus displays other elements of postmodernism, such as appearance versus actuality. Spiegelman explores this idea in a scene where a German prisoner who appears Jewish to the Nazis gets punished for claiming to be German. During the scene, the look of the German prisoner briefly shifts from a mouse to a cat (Page 210). This moment marks one of the few instances where Spiegelman deliberately chooses not to adhere to a strict binary of mice representing Jews and cats representing Germans. Spiegelman does this order to make the audience question how appearance versus actuality factors into the fate of Holocaust victims. Comics are an effective tool to explore this idea because they rely on the masking effect blurring the line between fantasy and reality with cartoony icons in photorealistic settings.

Another hallmark of postmodernism is intertextuality or allusions to other works of art. A notable example is the entire first chapter which pays homage to the silent film The Sheik, released in 1921. There is a specific panel where Vladek rides an exercise bike with an altered version of the movie’s poster appearing in the background (Page 15). The panel supports the characterization of Vladek as a ladies’ man by comparing his looks to the movie’s charismatic star Rudolph Valentino. This image plays with the subjectivity of memories since the altered poster is more reminiscent of the one created for the sequel The Son of the Sheik, released in 1926. Besides that, Spiegelman uses intertextuality to give the narrative a sense of self-awareness. Readers see self-awareness explicitly utilized in the chapter with the excerpt from “Prisoner on the Hell Planet.” The excerpt comes from a Spiegelman comic created a few years before Maus was released. Spiegelman makes his audience read this excerpt to help them better understand his mental state after his mother Anja’s suicide. Spiegelman explains how the Holocaust contributed to Anja’s already existing mental health issues. Anja’s death is a central part of Maus because it simultaneously acts as a catalyst and an obstacle for the story that Spiegelman wants to tell. The suicide drives Spiegelman to write a graphic novel that explores his parents’ experiences with the Holocaust. Still, it also prevents Anja’s perspective from being  fully told, creating narrative gaps. Later on, the graphic novel features a moment where Vladek directly responds to “Prisoner on Hell Planet,” addressing Anja’s suicide, further conveying the strained relationship between Spiegelman and his father. The excerpt from “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” holds more substance than just a fun instance of breaking the fourth wall. Instead, the text serves as a predecessor to Maus and an attempt to fill some of those narrative gaps. 

Ultimately, postmodern narratives in the vein of Maus are essential because they encourage the questioning of norms. Spiegelman urges his audience to stop accepting history as definite objective accounts of past events. Alternatively, Spiegelman presents history as biased, nonfiction storytelling constantly rewritten. Particularly with Maus, the comic does not depict the Holocaust as a complete event but rather an evolving phenomenon. Through the lens of Spiegelman’s relationship with his father, the comic shows how the trauma of the Holocaust continues to persist with future generations. Spiegelman pushes audiences to criticize the division between high brow and low brow art that goes beyond the realm of Holocaust literature. Maus showcases the potential to create timeless nuanced pieces of storytelling in the medium of comics. Instead of reinforcing problematic stereotypes, Maus helps readers better understand the Holocaust and Jewish culture. Spiegelman employs postmodernism in an effort to change how most people define Holocaust narratives and view history. The change that Maus advocates for matters because it encourages audiences to be more open-minded to all types of storytelling and cultures.