Maus

Spiegelman, Art. Maus. New York: Random House, 1992.


Annotation: A semi-autobiographical tale of Vledek and Anja Spiegelman living and surviving World War II in Hitler’s Nazi Poland.


Justification for nomination: This Pulitzer Prize winner of 1992 is a story of father who survived the holocaust, but can never forget the horror and atrocities he and his wife had to endure. Art is the son who attempts to tell his father’s story, but ends up with a better understanding of who is father is and what he has become since those tragic days of World War II. The author uses square bound panels with black and white imagery and limited gutter space. This allows the reader to move quickly through the story, but also, it seems easier to focus on the dialogue because it is in black and white. If vivid colors were used not only would it take away from the plot, but the use of vivid colors, I think, would brighten or cheer up a desolate time in history. This is not a story that has a happy ending; anyone involved is forever scarred. The author uses a variety of panel transitions that are fluid and true (action to action, subject to subject, and moment to moment). The word balloons and thought balloons were set up so it was easy to understand which character was speaking. The use of foreshadowing which started on the introductory pages was crucial for understanding the thought process of the protagonist—Vledek, Art’s father. The author uses two different narratives creating a story within a story. The present narrative is used when Art and Vledek are involved in the here and now dialogue and revealing their relationship. The past narrative is used when Vledek is retelling his experiences in Nazi Poland so the story jumps from present to past to present seamlessly without losing the reader. The double narrative seems to add a sense of importance of hearing stories told by your parent or grandparent. The themes of guilt (primary theme), racism, survival, death, violence (graphically, implied and language) foster passionate discussion and intense debate. For this reason, the book could and should be used in the classroom. It would work in a variety of classes, for example, history, sociology, and psychology. The author uses animal characterizations making the Jewish people mice, Germans cats, French frogs, and the Polish are Pigs. Some critics think that the use of animal depictions are insensitive to the Jewish people and the horrors that were inflicted upon them. I am of the thought that any stories about the holocaust are horrific and can be very hard to read about. The use on the animals gives the reader some distance from the horror to digest some of the themes.

Genre: Fiction/Graphic Novel/semi-autobiography/Historical/Challenged/Pulitzer Prize 1992