Most readers and analysists of Art Spiegelman’s Maus tend to become so focused on the grim nature of the comic’s subject matter that they overlook the possibility that there exists aspects beyond guilt and trauma that influence its narrative. Likewise, the most commonly overlooked of these aspects, and also possibly one of the most controversial, is humor. Throughout the centuries, individuals have employed humour, whether it be in the form of satire, irony, or understatement, to help them cope with trauma. Likewise, it comes as no surprise that, in detailing his father’s horrific experiences as a Jew in Nazi occupied Poland through a comic where Jews are represented as mice, Poles as pigs, and Germans as cats, Spiegelman employs humor. Moreover,
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Likewise, this evident in the scene in Maus II where Vladek in the present, much to the embarrassment of Spiegelman and his wife, uses his status as an ex- inmate at a concentration camp to not only return several bags of half eaten groceries to a store but also get “six dollars worth of new groceries for only one dollar.”(Spiegelman 2: 90). Moreover, the humour in this scene, which stems both from Spiegelman and his wife’s mortification and, to a degree, Vladek’s gall, serves to illustrate Vladek’s more negative qualities. Moreover, such an illustration, in combination with Spiegelman’s portrayal of his father as a man who repeatedly told his wife “And you’ll see that together we’ll survive.” (Spiegelman 1: 123) when they were facing the horrors of life under the Nazi regime, prevents Vladek from turning into the stereotype of the saintly Holocaust survivor and, instead, paints him as a human being who is both as noble as he is flawed. However, it should be noted that such painting does not come easily to Spiegelman, who laments to his father’s new wife, Mala, that, in his attempts to portray realistically portray his father by not glossing over his negative qualities, he suspects that has gone too far and instead turned him into “the racist caricature of the miserly old Jew.”(Spiegelman 1: 131). Likewise, such worries serves to illustrate Spiegelman’s own use of humour in criticizing his inability to tell his father’s story
Likewise, this evident in the scene in Maus II where Vladek in the present, much to the embarrassment of Spiegelman and his wife, uses his status as an ex- inmate at a concentration camp to not only return several bags of half eaten groceries to a store but also get “six dollars worth of new groceries for only one dollar.”(Spiegelman 2: 90). Moreover, the humour in this scene, which stems both from Spiegelman and his wife’s mortification and, to a degree, Vladek’s gall, serves to illustrate Vladek’s more negative qualities. Moreover, such an illustration, in combination with Spiegelman’s portrayal of his father as a man who repeatedly told his wife “And you’ll see that together we’ll survive.” (Spiegelman 1: 123) when they were facing the horrors of life under the Nazi regime, prevents Vladek from turning into the stereotype of the saintly Holocaust survivor and, instead, paints him as a human being who is both as noble as he is flawed. However, it should be noted that such painting does not come easily to Spiegelman, who laments to his father’s new wife, Mala, that, in his attempts to portray realistically portray his father by not glossing over his negative qualities, he suspects that has gone too far and instead turned him into “the racist caricature of the miserly old Jew.”(Spiegelman 1: 131). Likewise, such worries serves to illustrate Spiegelman’s own use of humour in criticizing his inability to tell his father’s story