Maus By Art Spiegelman Literary Devices

In World War Two the Nazis committed something so horrible, so horrible in fact that it became unspeakable. This act is the mass genocide of six million Jews, which is now known as the Holocaust. However, how would one portray this to future generations to prevent it from happening again if it is unspeakable, how does one describe something to people who can't ever imagine it? There are three techniques that answer these questions; pictures, repetition, and creating new words. If words can’t help you then pictures can, by showing you the unspeakable. One example of this is in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel MAUS, where it shows the experiences of mice (Jews) in concentration camps which are being held by the cats (Nazis). Spiegelman draws it in a way where the reader is put in the mices’ point of views, which ends up describing the unimaginable. So, through the visuals it gives you the point of view for something, by showing you the unspeakable. …show more content…
A very powerful book entitled, Someone, is an example of this. In it the word, “Jew”, repeats six million times, which represents how many Jews died in the Holocaust. The author of this book does this in order to show the reader the significance, the unimaginable. Through repetition the unimaginable is described by giving you the feelings of it. The third technique is the need of new words, which makes new things in order