Metafiction In Art Spiegelman's Maus

In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, he uses metafiction to establish things he would not have been able to communicate otherwise. Spiegelman created a character to represent himself in the outer story of the novel. This made the book more credible and created trust between Art and the audience. Using himself as a character helped him portray his emotions toward his father’s story. The utilization of metafiction let us closely see Art and Vladek’s relationship, like Art’s rebellious nature. It also exposed how Vladek treated Artie opposed to how Vladek treated Richieu. All the different ways he uses metafiction help the audience better understand and connect to Maus. Spiegelman making himself a character made it easier to show different points that he …show more content…
Spiegelman reminds the audience many times visually and with dialogue about how much time he spent listening to and researching his father’s story. The first panel of chapter three clearly tells the audience that Art frequently went to see Vladek, each time acquiring more details for his novel: “I visited my father more often in order to get more information about his past” (43). Adding this information makes the audience trust what Art is saying, and lets them know his fathers’ tale is not just a fabrication, but that he dedicated a lot of time in listening to Vladek’s actual accounts. He draws himself with a briefcase on this page proving that this is a professional encounter with his father. It constantly pictures him with a tape recorder or a notebook taking notes of their conversation. These visually explain that Art is serious about getting the most accurate recollection of Vladek’s stories. Without Art being a character in the story, it would have been harder for the audience to trust Art see how much quality research he did for …show more content…
Vladek tells Art that “you must eat all what is on your plate” when they are eating dinner (43). In contrast, the middle panel on page 75 illustrates Richieu dumping the food off of his plate and Vladek not saying a word. There is an obvious age gap between the two sons, but because of his hardships in the holocaust, especially with finding food, Vladek was angry when Art did not finish his meal. There were many times when he would have been grateful to have the food that Art does not eat, but because he had not yet experienced that so he was not mad when Richieu did the same thing. This demonstrates how much the holocaust changed Vladek’s personality. If Spiegelman would have not used metafiction then the audience would not have been able to see Vladek’s change in character from his hardships and how the holocaust gravely affected