Egregious Pain In Art Spiegelman's Maus

In the book Maus, by Art Spiegelman, his father, Vladek Spiegelman, goes through an adverse transformation resulting from his wife’s suicide, which alters his nature and makes him behave in an irrational way; however, the remembrance of the pain he experiences detrimentally affects Mala Spiegelman, Art Spiegelman and even himself, so this type of pain should not be remembered. While the pain formed from Anja’s suicide deeply resonates within Vladek, he is unable to get along with his current wife, inflicts emotional pain to both her and his son through his senseless actions, and constantly reminiscences about his wife; therefore, this egregious pain should be neglected or otherwise Vladek will be incapable of moving on in his life. As a result of the grief he encounters after Anja’s incident, Vladek’s thoughts consisting of distrust and nostalgia strongly affect Mala, because he does not trust her and is incapable of bonding with her. …show more content…
On the subject of living in the past, the fight Vladek and Mala have over how Vladek only has pictures of Anja but barely any of Mala, portrays Vladek is unable to show love nor gratitude towards Mala because, the pain from Anja’s suicide is blocking his emotions. Also, the guilt produced from Anja’s suicide affects Vladek’s son as well, because Vladek’s asinine actions cause mental pain to Art, and that pain reflects back at Vladek. When Vladek tells his son he burned his mother’s diaries to eradicate the memories of her, Vladek’s absurd action affects Art terribly, because Art will never know what his mother experienced during the war. In fact, Art Spiegelman used to blame himself for his mother’s suicide, but now also combines that his father was apart of it too because of Vladek’s ludicrous