https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12 Maus is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. This Padlet explores my illustration of this novel. I hope you enjoy it! en-us 2017-05-08 23:55:12 UTC 2023-07-22 03:03:18 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Templeball.png chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643146 Art Spiegelman is one of the main characters of this graphic novel. He is the only living son of Vladek and Anja, and is writing a book based on his father's stories from the Holocaust. Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust leads to a kind of guilt in his life, and through this book, he is searching for an identity or voice. ]]> 2017-05-09 00:05:36 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643146 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643159 Vladek is Artie's stingy father. His resourcefulness, intelligence, and ambition helped him to survive the Holocaust, but compared to this heroic Vladek, the older Vladek who tells stories to his son is a pale shadow. He is physically frail, and many of his ailments are the result of  his experiences in the camps. The energy it took to survive the Holocaust seems to have been channeled into a kind of hyper-perfectionism in all things, no matter how minor – pill-counting, nail-sorting, money-counting.]]> 2017-05-09 00:05:43 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643159 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643325 Mala is Vladek’s second wife; she knew Vladek and Anja before the war. She and Vladek are constantly squabbling over money. Just as Art feels that he will never live up to the memory of his dead brother, Mala feels that Vladek holds up his dead first wife, Anja, as an impossible ideal.]]> 2017-05-09 00:07:32 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643325 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643374 Art’s mother, Anja, survived the Holocaust, but committed suicide in May, 1968. Anja was neat, wealthy, intelligent, and fluent in multiple languages. For Art, Anja is the mother who is needy and emotionally draining, but at the same time, the parent who is more sympathetic to him than his father.]]> 2017-05-09 00:08:03 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643374 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643407 Lucia is Vladek’s girlfriend before he meets Anja. She is a very needy, jealous character that won't let Vladek move on. ]]> 2017-05-09 00:08:25 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643407 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643574 Richieu is Art's brother who was born before the war and died during the Holocaust. For most of his life, Art knows Richieu only as the perfect son with a tragic death that Art feels he can never live up to.]]> 2017-05-09 00:10:15 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643574 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643609 Pavel, also a Holocaust survivor, is Art’s therapist. Pavel provides an important counterweight to Vladek by showing how diverse the survival experience was. He also helps Art understand his father's behavior.]]> 2017-05-09 00:10:27 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643609 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643657 Mancie is a Jewish woman who leads groups of other Jewish women prisoners at Birkenau. She risks her life in order to relay messages between Vladek and Anja and helps keep Anja alive in the camps.]]> 2017-05-09 00:10:50 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643657 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643681 Mandelbaum is one of Vladek’s first friends at Auschwitz. He is not as resourceful as Vladek, and Vladek tries to help him out by finding shoes for him and making sure he eats as much as possible. However, Mandelbaum does not survive. ]]> 2017-05-09 00:11:03 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643681 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643721 Shivek is one of Vladek's friends from before the war. They both survive the concentration camps run into each other once they leave the camps. Together they travel to a safe place and are freed by the Americans.]]> 2017-05-09 00:11:27 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643721 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643762 Tosha is Anja’s sister. When it is clear that the remaining Jews in Sosnowiec are going to be deported to Auschwitz, Tosha leaves with her children and Richieu to the home of an uncle. When it is clear that the Jews in this town are also going to be shipped to the concentration camps, Tosha commits suicide and poisons Richieu and her two children.]]> 2017-05-09 00:11:53 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643762 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643813 Françoise is Art’s wife. In the story, Françoise serves as a kind of sounding board for Art to bounce his ideas off of. Being French, Françoise does not have a direct connection to the Holocause, so she represents the reader's that do not have a background that relates to the text.]]> 2017-05-09 00:12:25 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170643813 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170644015 Mrs. Motonowa is a Polish woman that Vladek meets as he works the black market in Sosnowiec. She hides Vladek and Anja in her farmhouse for a time during the war. During this time, Anja tutors Mrs. Motonowa's son in German. ]]> 2017-05-09 00:14:40 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170644015 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170644056 Haskel is a cousin of Vladek’s who is able to schmooze his way into favor with the German soldiers. With his help, Vladek and Anja are able to escape deportation to Auschwitz for a time. Vladek calls Haskel a “Kombinator,” a schemer because he does not help others for free, and even accepts money without giving the aid he promised (I.5.118). ]]> 2017-05-09 00:15:12 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170644056 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170644072 The Kapo is one of Vladek's block supervisors in the camps. Vladek gives him lessons in English, and in return he gets more food and protection from the Nazi guards. ]]> 2017-05-09 00:15:24 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170644072 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170791771 In this scene, Vladek and Anja are riding a train to a sanitarium when it passes through a small town. Hanging in the middle of the town was a Nazi flag. This scene is important because it is the first time Vladek saw the swastika and it signals the beginning of the rise of the Nazis. ]]> 2017-05-09 15:10:53 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170791771 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170795663 These pages consist of Art's old comic Prisoner on the Hell Planet. Art created this comic after his mother passed away as a way to express the guilt, anger, and confusion that he was experiencing at that time. As the audience, it gives us a deeper look into those feelings and how Anja's suicide impacted Artie. ]]> 2017-05-09 15:23:20 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170795663 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797306 This is the shocking scene in which Tosha poisons herself, Richieu and her two children in order to prevent them from going to the concentration camps. This scene was very horrific, but it shows the extremity of the situation and how far people were willing to go to protect their loved ones. ]]> 2017-05-09 15:28:16 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797306 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797322 Upon hearing of Richieu's death, Anja throws herself to the ground and wishes to die. Vladek comforts her by saying "No, darling! To die, it's easy, but you have to struggle for like." I chose this scene because I thought that was a very profound quote and it sums up one of the themes of the book well. ]]> 2017-05-09 15:28:19 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797322 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797462 On this page, Art is trying to decide how to draw his wife, Francoise. She is French, so he has to decide on what type of animal she should be. He thinks through a few options before deciding to draw the French as frogs, but Art draws Francoise as a mouse like him since she converted to Judiasm when they got married. This scene brings up the animal allegory that is present throughout the whole book. Playing off racial stereotypes, Spiegelman uses animals to represent different races and nationalities ]]> 2017-05-09 15:28:40 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797462 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797530 At this point in the story, Vladek has arrived at Auschwitz and is crying when a priest approaches him. The priest looks at the prisoner tattoo on Vladek's arm and finds a lot of meaning and good omens in the numbers. Totaled together the numbers add up to 18, which is the Hebrew number of life. This scene gives Vladek hope and hope throughout the war that he will survive, and he did! ]]> 2017-05-09 15:28:53 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797530 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797624 This chapter opens up with Artie looking like a human with a mouse mask on. These frames help characterize Artie by revealing his thoughts and feelings. The mask could mean he feels like his is only faking being a Jew becaus he didn't live through the Holocaust and he doesn't feel like his book is authentic. These pages are also disturbing because Artie is sitting on top of a pile of emaciated dead bodies. This could be symbolic for Art's feeling that he is taking advantage of those who suffered during WWII. ]]> 2017-05-09 15:29:06 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170797624 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170813448 In this scene, Art is talking to his wife outside about his father. He gets bitten by a mosquito and slaps at it, then sprays bug spray into the air. These frames are very important and ironic. The bug spray is a reference to Zyklon-B, the pesticide used to gas concentration camp prisoners because they were viewed as pests, just like the mosquito is to Art. ]]> 2017-05-09 16:18:07 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170813448 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170815032 Another significant scene is the one in which Vladek, Artie, and Francoise are on their way back from the store and Francoise stops to pick up a hitch hiker, who is African American. Vladek gets very upset about this and is rasict towards the hitch hiker. This scene stands to show the audience Vladek's hypocrisy.  Vladek judges an entire race of people in much the same way that the Jews were condemned during the Holocaust. ]]> 2017-05-09 16:23:31 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170815032 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170816989 This is the final page in the book. It wraps up the end of the story and Vladek's last words, where he accidentally calls Art Richieu, serve as a final reminder that the events of the Holocaust have had a lasting effect on the people who lived through it. It also shows Vladek and Anja's tombstone, symbolizing how they were reunited in death. ]]> 2017-05-09 16:30:51 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170816989 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170817914 Art Spiegelman is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate. In 1992, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his masterful Holocaust narrative MAUS. His comics are best known for their shifting graphic styles, their formal complexity, and controversial content. ]]> 2017-05-09 16:34:33 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170817914 chloevans611 https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170819176 Chloe is a graduating senior in high school that will be going on to college at OU in the fall. When asked about her thoughts on MAUS, Chloe stated, "I am glad that I had the opportunity to read this unique story. I did not enjoy reading it very much, but it allowed me to develop a deeper appreciation for Holocaust survivors and opened up my reading ecperience to a more graphic graphic novel. ]]> 2017-05-09 16:38:50 UTC https://padlet.com/chloevans611/w5ouh55mtg12/wish/170819176