Week Seven: Maus
Maus is a piece that I feel continues to affirm its place in graphic novels, literature as a whole, and hopefully, in the general conscious of readers of all kinds. From the deeply unsettling, tragic realities revealed in the piece to the cleverly chosen storytelling techniques found in the representation of the characters, the simple rendering, and the shifts in time, this piece manages to grip the reader in a way that makes the experience of the Holocaust less abstract and distant, and instead reaffirms it as a relevant, ever-important topic that affects us to this day.
One component of the story that stood out to me as an especially effective storytelling tool were the shifts in time. While most of the story details the experience of the Holocaust as it is being shared from father to son, the author doesn't limit our experience to those memories. We are also invited to look at the more current reality-- the lives of Holocaust survivors and the aftereffects that the event had on their families, even those generations later. The strongest example of this in the story came in the form of the author and his present interactions with his father. Being able to see the author's father not as simply a victim of an unthinkable tragedy, but within a space that most people are far more familiar with-- a typical American home, complete with a grumpy father and his exercise machine-- made things more intimate and real. Personally I was able to see so much of my own grandfather and father in those nuances; the squabbles between the author's father and stepmother, the parade of pills, the insistence elders have that we eat until we can't anymore. These moments in the story were so powerful in that regard, and it's in their mundaneness that readers are able to feel that.
The use of simply rendered mice for the characters was also a powerful storytelling tool. This allowed the audience what was essentially a blank canvas to project onto and identify with to some extent, while also allowing for easy identification of characters. The literal cat and mouse dynamic communicated by these choices are an interesting interpretation of the circumstances, as well as an effective one. Showing Jewish people as mice also seems to fit into the historic antisemitic narrative that equated Jewish people to vermin, while also combatting it via showing us the humanity of these characters.
Maus is a piece that should forever remain relevant. A large part of me wishes it wasn't something that should remain forever relevant-- as we as humans, and especially persecuted groups of people, should not have to produce brilliant artwork in order to win the sympathies of others. That respect, sympathy, and safety should be inalienable and unquestionable. But given that the world is what it is, and people are so eager to forget, or even deny these tragedies, nothing but good can come from the powerful documentation and sharing of stories like that of Maus.
One component of the story that stood out to me as an especially effective storytelling tool were the shifts in time. While most of the story details the experience of the Holocaust as it is being shared from father to son, the author doesn't limit our experience to those memories. We are also invited to look at the more current reality-- the lives of Holocaust survivors and the aftereffects that the event had on their families, even those generations later. The strongest example of this in the story came in the form of the author and his present interactions with his father. Being able to see the author's father not as simply a victim of an unthinkable tragedy, but within a space that most people are far more familiar with-- a typical American home, complete with a grumpy father and his exercise machine-- made things more intimate and real. Personally I was able to see so much of my own grandfather and father in those nuances; the squabbles between the author's father and stepmother, the parade of pills, the insistence elders have that we eat until we can't anymore. These moments in the story were so powerful in that regard, and it's in their mundaneness that readers are able to feel that.
The use of simply rendered mice for the characters was also a powerful storytelling tool. This allowed the audience what was essentially a blank canvas to project onto and identify with to some extent, while also allowing for easy identification of characters. The literal cat and mouse dynamic communicated by these choices are an interesting interpretation of the circumstances, as well as an effective one. Showing Jewish people as mice also seems to fit into the historic antisemitic narrative that equated Jewish people to vermin, while also combatting it via showing us the humanity of these characters.
Maus is a piece that should forever remain relevant. A large part of me wishes it wasn't something that should remain forever relevant-- as we as humans, and especially persecuted groups of people, should not have to produce brilliant artwork in order to win the sympathies of others. That respect, sympathy, and safety should be inalienable and unquestionable. But given that the world is what it is, and people are so eager to forget, or even deny these tragedies, nothing but good can come from the powerful documentation and sharing of stories like that of Maus.
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