Unpacking 'Maus' essay topics by Elektra Flaskas-Troaditis

The Complete Maus’ illustrates that no one can fully evade the lingering impact of their experiences."

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Introduction

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Art Spiegelman's "The Complete Maus" explores survival and its role throughout the graphic novel.

The complete Maus' explores the difficulties of seeking freedom of the experienced horrors on the Holocaust"

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Key words: graphic novel, offers insight, horrors of the Holocaust

Synonyms: Graphic novel - comic, illustrative novel

Offers insight - provides insight, reveals insight, sheds light on

Horrors of the Holocaust - brutality of the Holocaust, Nazi persecution, war years, world war 2

Art Spiegelman published The Complete Maus not only to alleviate his guilt but to show the unavoidable escape from the horrors of the holocaust

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Art Spiegelman utilises his illustrative novel to shed light on the brutality of the Nazi persecution.

Quotes

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"No, darling! To die, it's easy... But you have to struggle for life! Until the last moment we must struggle together!" p. 124

"[Anja's father] was a millionaire, but even this didn't save him his life." p. 117

Key words

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Survival

Role

Discuss

Maus

Synonyms for Key word

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Survival:

bear, endure, exist, get through, handle, keep, last, live, recover, remain, ride out, subsist, suffer, sustain, weather, withstand.

Role:

position, persona, character, figure, involvement, purpose.

Evidence - body paragraph 1

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Vladek states that the work in the concentration camps were "really very hard - we had to move mountains", in which the metaphor "[moving] mountains" highlights the harsh extremities of the Holocaust and the impossible scale of labour carried out by the prisoners.

pg 58

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Storytelling, art therapy
Storytelling= narrative, graphic narration memoir narration, recollection, reconstructing the past.
Art therapy= visual arts therapy, expressive therapy, healing art therapy
Body paragraph 1:
Vladek's experiences and memories
How storytelling influences him to avoid things and resort to obsessive behaviors, such as counting, cycling and hoarding.
Body paragraph 2:
Discuss how it is a way for Art to cope with guilt and grapple with his intergenerational trauma through portraying his fathers experiences, form of expressive therapy.
Body paragraph 3:
Discuss the importance of other themes that play a critical role in Maus. Horrors of the Holocaust and their part in the graphic novel.

Evidence:

page 32- visual of Vladek counting pills obsessively
page 25- Vladek cycling visual
page 113- nazis are searching for the Jews
Quote: ''is it safe to go out yet''
Quote: ''im an expert for this''
Quote: ''look now what you made me do''

Evidence:

visual with dead bodies -page 201
Quote: ''fifteen foreign editions are coming out''
presents himself as small like a child portraying his vulnerability
sharing his fathers experiences is a form of expressive therapy, to alleviate his survivors guilt and intergenerational trauma
''feeling completely messed up''

Evidence:

Horrors of the Holocaust
''small bread, crunchy like glass''
slave labor, panel 1 page 208
torture, ''count the blows, if you loose count, ill start again''
hanging of the Jewish people

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Body Paragraphs:

Discussing the harsh conditions of the Holocaust, through the experiences of his father Vladek, by also giving light to his mother's difficult times during the war years.
Furthermore Spiegelman captures the trauma and guilt that has been carried by those who are survivors of the Holocaust.
Through the use of the novel Spiegelman also analysis his own experience of intergenerational-trauma and his own guilt.

1 body paragraph

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Anja's death is an evident example of how a persons war times can effect them mentally.

2 body paragraph

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Maus' illustrates how intergenerational trauma can drive a family apart. (survivors guilt)

3 body paragraph

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Artie explores the unstable father and son relationship which depicts the inherited survivors guilt through Vladek.

Evidence - body paragraph 1

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In the the 'Prisoner of the Hell Planet', Artie states that his mother "murdered [him]" and "left [him] here to take the rap", which suggests that Artie is imprisoned by Anja's suicide and is struggling to deal with intergenerational trauma from the Holocaust, through the relationship with both of his parents. This further highlights the horrific nature of the Holocaust and how it can indirectly affect a person's life even if they haven't actually experienced the war.

In page 124, Vladek encourages Anja by stating that "To die, its easy but you have to struggle for life". He says this to not only push her to find her will to keep moving forward despite their struggles but to also ground himself. To remind himself that to die is to give in to the antisemitism and systematic genocide of the Nazi's. Thus, he refuses to give up and chooses instead to struggle to survive for hope in the future.

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Evidence Body Paragraph 2:

Throughout multiple parts of the graphic novel, Vladek is portrayed as nervous and paranoid. Thought little habits like " counting [his] pills" we get an insight of how Vladek is still suffering from the mental challenges caused by his time in the Holocaust. In addition Anja portrays her survivors guilt by bringing to attention that " the whole family is gone!" and in contrasts to them she has survived but doesn't know how to continue without them.

Panel: Vladek obsessively counting and saving scraps of food in the present-day scenes.

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Quote: "Ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb." (Part II, Ch. 1)

Shows how his survival habits from Auschwitz never left him, shaping his behavior decades later.