Art Spieman Maus

In Marianne Hirsch article, The Second of Postmemory, the author discusses the effect of postmemory trauma on the second generation of children whose parents survived a tragedy. Postmemory definition, according to Hirsch “describes the relationship of the second generation to powerful, often traumatic, experiences that preceded their births but that were nevertheless transmitted to them so deeply as to seem to constitute memories in their own right” (Hirsch, 103). Hirsch brings up throughout her article, that children whose parents survived a horrible situation, often make their children victims. Since, the children still have to deal with the pain that was passed onto them, forceable by the parents emotional state and reactions. The children do not now …show more content…
To grow up with such overwhelming inherited memories, to be dominated by narratives that preceded one’s birth or one’s consciousness, is to risk having one’s own stories and experiences displaced, even evacuated, by those of a previous generation…These events happened in the past, but their effects continue into the present”(Hirsch, 107). In, Art Spiegelman Maus, the theme of the book was revolved around second generation trauma in father and son relationship. Art is the second generation child of holocaust survivor parents, and because of the situation that happen to his parents he grew up in an environment that made a gap that caused a distance in relationship to his parents. Art wondered what his parents have been though, in certain sections of the book. He wrote the non cognitive acts of transfer” play in the process of postmemory (p. 112). In relation to Hirsch's article, in Art Spiegelman Maus, we see examples of postmemory by verbal, non-verbal and impact the story have on Artie and Vladek's father and son relationship through father's behavior and survival