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Vladek Speigelman Analysis- Natalie Jones

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Vladek Speigelman Analysis- Natalie Jones

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Vladek is a Jew who lived through the Holocaust. He is the  father of Art Speigelman, whom is writing a comic on his father’s experience. Vladek’s first wife dies of suicide and is presently remarried to his current wife, Mala. During the beginning chapters of the novel the audience understands Artie and Vladek’s relationship as father and son. Vladek is passive aggressive to his son and is not entirely eager to tell his story. However, Artie convinces him to do so. Vladek is very precise as one can see through his odd counting of pills and when he yells at Artie to clean up Artie’s cigarette ashes. Vladek begins his story about the relationship with his wife and the birth of their first son which humanizes him in the novel. When the audience learns about Vladek’s relationship with his wife one understands the love in his life and the weight his departure has one his family and himself.

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Artie is a Jewish man who wants to gather information to write a comic book about his father’s experiences in the Holocaust. Through these findings about his father’s life, he begins to develop some sympathy for his dad’s shortcomings as a father in his childhood. Artie sometimes finds himself getting angry with his parents.

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-Arts Mom
-Waladek’s first wife
-Took Vlademir from Lucia
-Has good personality > looks
-got her friend arrested for hiding documents with her

Jaxon

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Why does Ms. Stenfanska go to jail? What role did Anja play in Ms. Stefanska’s going to jail?

Ms. Stefanska went to jail because she was found with communist messages. She had the documents because she was holding the package for Anja. The police had come looking for Anja because she translates communist messages into German and then passes them on. They searched their house and when they couldn’t find anything they went to the neighbors’ houses. They found the package of messages in Ms. Stefanska’s house and she was taken to jail.

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Why does Vladek choose Anja over Lucia? What do you think of his choice?
I think Vladek chose Anja over Lucia because he didn’t love Lucia. Lucia was very pretty, but also very crazy. Vladek didn’t see her as “wife material.” Lucia also forced Vladek into a relationship he wasn’t entirely committed to. Vladek also says that he picked Anja for her intelligence. Overall Anja was a better choice for a long term relationship.

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Why does Vladek throw away Art’s Coat? What would you have done if you were Art? -Jaxon

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Why does Vladek throw away Art’s Coat? What would you have done if you were Art? -Jaxon

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He throws away his coat because he thought it was trashy. Yes, He does give him one of his new coats, but still messed up for him to just yeet it out like that. If i were Art i would throw hands. No one is allowed to just get rid of my stuff especially if I liked it.

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Ms. Stefanska goes to jail because she covers for Anja. The polic stop by because they heard that someone has been partaking in Communist espionage. They suspect Anja and when she hears about this, Anja takes the letters full of information regarding the spread of communism, and she gives them to Ms. Stefanska to hide. She does this because Anja is a one of her best customers. Ms. Stefanska claims she doesnt know anything about the letters and she gets sent to jail for a few months. The readers find out that Anja has been aiding in the spread of communism.

Marin

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One of the biggest themes I found in Maus was: Identity is not defined by what others may think of you. In the book different races are portrayed as different animals based off of what the Nazis thought of them. The Jews were “filthy” mice, the Polish were pigs, and the Germans were cats, who hunt the mice. This pushes the theme because throughout these first chapters, and throughout the rest of the book, people defy their identities by their actions. The Jews had to persist and suffer to stand a chance of escaping the Holocaust. The Jews were not worthless mice, but strong and persistent who suffered and, in Vladek’s case, came out as survivors. He went against the identity put on him by the Germans and did not let it define him.

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Art visits his father Vladek to learn about his experiences of the Holocaust and life events leading up to it. Vladek talks about Lucia, who he dated for a while before he met Anja. Vladek and Anja talk and write letters to each other regularly. Vladek decides to end his relationship with Lucia, move to Sosnowiec, and marry Anja.

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Luck is portrayed when Vladik is able to return to home. He had to disguised as polish to get back and luckily he wasn’t recognized.

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Mala is Vladek second wife. Mala is a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust. Vladek and Mala do not have the best relationship. An example of when this occurs is when Mala tries to hang Artie’s jacket on a wire hanger. Vladek yells at her, to put the jacket on a wood hanger.

Hannah Miller

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Art visits his father again and eats dinner with him and Mala. His father begins to recount his experiences after he was drafted. He mentions that Vladek’s father would often try to make his family look sickly so that they would not be drafted when they were assessed. But Vladek was eventually drafted in 1939, and was defending a river against the Germans. He shot one soldier and was captured and shipped off to a POW camp. He recounts that the Jews were separated and forced to clean a stable, and also put into cold tents with very little food. He was sent food by his family and eventually got a chance to go to a nicer camp to work a harder job. While at that camp, he had a dream telling him that he would be released on Parshas Truma, which he eventually was. He was told he was going home, but they were shipped off to another site where the Germans were executing prisoners of war and Jews. A few Rabbis helped the men by sending them to local families as if they were their cousins or other relatives. Vladek is taken in by his family friend Orbach and manages to sneak onto a train to return home. He meets with his family and Vladek stops his story there. He tries to give Art a coat after throwing his old coat out.

-Harrison

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Art Spiegelman visits his father Vladek Spiegelman and his second wife Mala Spiegelman. Art asks his father to tell some stories about his experiences during WWII. After refusing to do so, Vladek gives in and starts his story off as a young man. Vladek meets a young beautiful lady named Lucia Greenberg and dates her for a while until he meets Anja Zylberberg. Anja is a smart a and wealthy young woman that charms Vladek despite not being as pretty as Lucia. After keeping in contact, Vladek ends his relationship with Lucia and decides to start a relationship with Anja eventually marrying her.

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Ali Pluemer - Why does Art Spiegelman use mice instead of people to portray the characters in the story? What do the mice represent? 

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Ali Pluemer - Why does Art Spiegelman use mice instead of people to portray the characters in the story? What do the mice represent? 

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Art Spiegelman uses mice instead of people in his story so that his drawings are clear and to symbolically show the order/hierarchy of people in the Holocaust. He uses different animals to differentiate the multiple nationalities/races which clarifies who is who when looking at the drawings. More importantly, he uses mice to portray Jews in his story because it familiarizes us with the hierarchy of animas which are associated with how the Holocaust went. Mice are at the bottom of the food chain in the story just as Jews were in the Holocaust. They are constantly hunted by the Nazis which are cats, which allows for people, especially younger kids, to understand the order of people in the events that played out.

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A theme that started to show itself within the first few chapters is the humanization of everyone effected by the holocaust. Vladek’s story isn’t only unique to himself, everyone persecuted in the holocaust had their own story’s similar to vladek’s. The only difference is that Vladek was one of the few lucky people to have survived the war to tell his story. It’s through Artie that his story was told.