Mice Versus Cats: The Verisimilitude of Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale unconventionally presents the Holocaust in the form of a cartoon, but, as eerie or even impossible as it may initially sound, the book manages to be truthful and remarkably tasteful. The plot revolves around two young Polish Jews, Vladek and Anja, the artist's father and mother, as told by Vladek to Artie, the author's book character form. Vladek and Anja endure Nazi wrath at ghettos and concentration camps, but ultimately persevere, come to America, and give birth to Spiegelman.

After Anja commits suicide, Artie must learn to cope with his mother's sudden death and his aging father, as frustrating as the latter often proves to be. The story's strength then lies in Artie coming to terms with his father as he gradually discovers more and more about Vladek's Holocaust ordeals through a series of interviews. In other words, the book is as much about father-son relationships later in life as it is about Jewish tribulation during World War II.

Spiegelman's opus succeeds because he emphasizes that the comic is a comic, but, even so, his father, Vladek's story is true. What makes the book so convincing as a Holocaust story is that Spiegelman recognizes the limitations of his art form and chooses a heavily stylistic rendering of his father's story over a blatant attempt at realism that would ultimately cheapen his father's experience. Taking a highly realistic approach would perverse his work, as his choice of medium would seem totally inappropriate if not shockingly irreverent.

In an effort to theatrically "break the forth wall," Spiegelman makes the stylistic choice to portray his personal writing and drawing process for the book. The process is so dramatic that it even comes across as more of a journey than the stereotypical book brainstorming production, making it the perfect skeleton for a comic book because it is action-packed. This story-telling device of incorporating the author within the text reminds the reader that all of Vladek's horrifying adventures really happened.

There are numerous scenes in which Artie visits his father and asks him to describe the events of his life during the Holocaust period. At the end of Chapter Two: The Honeymoon, Artie decides to stop interviewing his father for the day and says, "My hand is sore from writing all this down" (42).

Details such as these show all of the research Artie conducted, which makes the story seem more credible because they stress that the comic is based upon actual sit-down sessions with Vladek. Furthermore, the multiple allusions to the writing process expand the characters' field of vision, thus establishing a context for the plot. The past and the present both read authentically.

Further evidence that the past fell according to what Vladek claims shines through in Spiegelman's stylistic choice to incorporate his comic about his mother's suicide. The comic first appeared in an obscure 1973 indie 'zine, titled Short Order Comix #1 that Spiegelman only again remembered after a friend of Mala said her college-aged son had read it. The fact that the comic appeared in a real-life 'zine---something tangible---makes the entire story more believable.

If a reader were truly curious, he could do his own research and obtain a copy. The 'zine comic's content also reminds the reader that his mother's suicide was directly connected to her traumatic experiences during the Holocaust and her father's Post-World War II reactionary behavior---again adding credibility to Vladek's story. What is also important to note is that all of the characters in the 'zine comic are humans, not mice as they are in the rest of Maus.

Observing this is essential to further cementing the veracity of the whole story because it underlines the reality that all of these terrible things happened to real people, not rodents. As Spiegelman's father aged, he became more miserly and therefore more irritating.

Spiegelman also makes the stylistic decision not to idealize anyone or anything, neither visually nor through any of the comic's diction. All of the characters within the same species are approximately the same size, so no single mouse appears more powerful or significant than another. The book does not venerate Vladek for surviving Nazi oppression; instead, Spiegelman examines his character and even occasionally openly criticizes his father. After all, mice are humble creatures---hardly honorable ones.

Every time that Artie visits his father in the story, Spiegelman carefully illustrates his father's interactions with other people. Vladek berates his second-wife Mala and laments that she is not like his beloved first-wife, Artie's mother Anja. Thus, Spiegelman emphasizes the repercussions of being a Holocaust survivor. Obiously Vladek still suffers from his time as a Jew in the ghettos and the concentration camps.

Spiegelman is also well aware of the cartoon form's visual limitations and respects those boundaries. The entire comic is black-and-white, which establishes a somber atmosphere. Color would cheapen the illustrations by attempting to add a fake breath of life that comics, by their very nature, do not deserve to have. Never does the book seem too visually realistic. The main characters are, after all, mice.

Many of the real-life events that Vladek describes are too gruesome to even attempt to portray accurately without in some way defiling them. When Vladek, for instance, mentions how the Nazis hanged four Jews on Modrzejwska Street for dealing without coupons (85), Spiegelman does not try to show the bloody truth, only the emotional one. He realizes how futile it would be to capture every graphic detail.

Further evidence of his stylistic choices can be found on every page of the book: all of the characters have simple, flat faces that only feature eyes and noses. The characters' mouths appear very rarely so their ability to express their emotions is again limited.

Perhaps to underline comics' limitations, Spiegelman juxtaposes his illustrations against photographs, which also evidence the story's verisimilitude. The photos begin as mere drawings of photos---ink sketches of what is inside of a frame, box, or album---and not actual photographs. The first such instance of this type of representation appears in Chapter One: The Sheik (19).

However, as the story progresses, Spiegelman starts including real photos. These mementos show that Artie's older brother, Richieu, did indeed. The boy was not a figment of his parents' imagination used to guilt Artie into behaving as a model son. At one point in time, Richieu lived and breathed, ate and spoke, slept and dreamt. Including his mother's photograph also reminds the reader that Anja is not fictitious, either. Like Vladek and about six million other Jews, she suffered in Hitler's concentration camps.

Spiegelman's inclusion of heavy symbolism is another stylistic decision that compensates for comic books' inherent inability to extend beyond two-dimensional serial pictures and speech bubbles. No matter how carefully drawn or well-written a comic book may be, it can never truly capture the essence of a moment, let alone an entire era, because it is only a form of representation---and a stigmatized one at that. Representation can never achieve more than near equivalency to an actual event.

Again, Speigelman does not strive to be totally realistic; instead, he aims for a stylistic rendering of his father's story that is based upon his father's perceptions of the Holocaust and then his then contemporary perceptions of his father. Every page then is symbolically oriented, although some frames are definitely subtler than others. One of the most clever frames feature Vladek with Anja at a crossroads shaped like a Swastika (170), which indicates impending Nazi danger.

The most apparent form of symbolism though, of course, is the telling of the story through animal allegory, somewhat like George Orwell's Animal Farm. However while this "mice versus cats" technique itself seems too fairytale-like to be factual, the implication of allegory is winningly persuades the reader that Vladek and Anja's story is true. Unfortunately for Vladek, the implication is not especially favorable.

Spiegelman's choice to stylistically communicate his father's story through a beast fable lends the book a critical air that is convincingly genuine. Choosing animals to represent humans, though, is quite comic book-esque and therefore, the artist is again adhereing to cartoon Westerners perceive mice as timid, cowardly, quiet, resourceful, sneaky, filthy, and vermin---all words that were virtually synonymous with "Jew" in Hitler's Germany. Artie himself would agree with several of those descriptions, especially when taking his father's miserly character into consideration.

He is the bitter young Jew who cannot understand "why didn't the Jews at least try to resist [the Nazis]?" (233). As offensive as the query sounds, it is legitimate for someone who grew up with two emotionally-crippled parents to wonder how the Jews could have prevented the Holocaust or at least stopped it earlier than it ended. As the story progresses, Artie's reasons for not revering his father for surviving Hitler's horrors become clearer, though, again they initially seem disrespectful.

After all, as Artie phrases it, "in some ways he didn't survive" (250). Vladek refuses to allot his own wife more than $50 a month for her expenses, even though he could easily afford to give her a greater amount. He is paranoid about waste to the extent that he even returns half-used groceries to the supermarket for a refund because he does not want to throw good food away. Ever since the Holocaust, Vladek has been incredibly stingy, which baffles Artie because he himself has led such a comparatively comfortable lifestyle. Unlike his father, he has never known true hunger or desperation.

After some brief psychological analysis, then, Artie's bitterness toward his father no longer seems so unreasonable. Such a rebellious attitude is virtually never (if ever) present in most Holocaust books and movies, which is part of Maus' success. Its non-sentimental regard of the Holocaust makes Artie in particular more identifiable as a full fleshed human, as opposed to a mere black-and-white mouse humanoid.

As cinematic as Maus may seem at times, there are clear stylistic distinctions between the comic and any Holocaust movie. Obviously there is a difference in media form, but in this case, the difference falls in the favor of the comics because there are no forced attempts at reality. The book itself is too stylized to be perceived as real, but its story is, again, quite believable. Maus is more convincing than most Holocaust movies because, as previously mentioned, Artie has a sensible, more objective perception of his father as a scarred victim rather than as a glorious hero.

As a complete juxtaposition to Maus' stylized rejection of common Holocaust storylines, popular Holocaust films like "Jakob the Liar", "Life is Beautiful", and "The Pianist" are incredibly nostalgic. The genre as a whole is sometimes deemed vapid because it is too ingrained in that period and rarely explores the consequences for a survivor, let alone the child of a survivor. Maus, however, is involved in the past and present. Vladek tells his story through flashback, as opposed to most Holocaust movies' present-tense approach.

Therefore, not all of the details about the ghettos and camps are not always clear, but considering all the trauma that Vladek experienced, it is understandable that his memory would lapse. Many Holocaust films seem to be unrealistically detail-oriented and are therefore less about a mood.

The movies draw upon generalizations, stereotypical perceptions that Spiegelman discounts. Holocaust films almost have a predictable formula that makes the entire genre too nauseating to watch for certain people. The plot is almost already known before the audience sits down in the movie theater. Vladek, however, is not an especially sentimental character.

Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale is a poignant comic that does not actively strive for artistic recognition (in the sense that it adopts a preconceived notion of how a Holocaust story should read), but achieves it nonetheless through its avant-garde presentation.

Spiegelman seemingly breaks the rules by selecting an unusual media form for a Holocaust story, but then adheres to the inherent restrictions of comics. He understands that his book could never be mistaken for reality, but that his story is credible enough that at least the plot can be accepted as truth. Ultimately the concept of a comic book about the Holocaust, especially with mice as the main characters, remains disturbing---and even still this story of cats versus mice remains popular today.

Works Cited:
Maus: A Survivor's Tale. Spiegelman, Art. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997.