Night :)

Okay so I’m getting started on this blog a little late and am really tried. But I really enjoyed reading Maus, it was a type of novel then I’ve ever read before. The idea of a graphic novel was not very exciting at the beginning, but the pictures added another aspect to the story. One thing I would like to explore in my essay is the fact that different races are displayed as different animals in the pictures. The metaphor of Jews as mice is taken directly from Nazi propaganda, which portrayed the Jews as a kind of vermin to be exterminated. This metaphor seems rather simplistic but I think there is a deeper meaning. The quote from the German newspaper article at the beginning of the book could also add to my essay, “Mickey Mouse is the most miserable ideal ever revealed...Healthy emotions tell every independent young man and every honorable youth that the dirty and filfth-covered vermin, the greatest bacteria carrier in the animal kingdom, cannot be the ideal type of animal...Away with Jewish brutalization of the people! Down with Mickey Mouse! Wear the Swastika Cross!” I think beyond the simple metaphor, the importance of race is evident when illustrating the life in World War II-era Poland. We see this struggle clearly in Valdek’s recount of his memories. When Art asks his father whether the man was really a German, Vladek replies, "who knows...it was German prisoners in there also...But for the Germans this guy was Jewish." I think most important of all, however, is the fact that Vladek (who survived the horrors of the Holocaust) is himself a racist.

So here is the start of my thesis:
In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, issues of race and class figure heavily in the plot, themes, and structure. Not only is this apparent in the grand scale of the Holocaust, but also through a metaphor graphically as Spiegelman tries to portray the issues of racism to the reader.