By pairing the art of cartooning with the stories of Vladek and Anja Spiegelman, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus reveals the adversities faced by Holocaust victims. In his work, Art includes the conversations and interactions he has with his father Vladek as he tries to gather details from not only Vladek’s memories about World War II and the Holocaust, but also from his deceased mother’s experience. Although he gains much insight from his father, his mother’s story and presence in the graphic novel seem to be muted and paled in comparison. Due to Anja’s suicide in 1968, five years before the publication of the first volume of Maus, as well as the destruction of her diaries from the Holocaust, Art Spiegelman is forced to rely solely on
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The segment opens up with a photograph of his mother taken in 1958, contrasting starkly with the cartoon hand that holds the image, as well as the sharp lines and grotesque art style Spiegelman incorporates in the segment. Although Spiegelman often includes interpretations of photographs, converting real photographs into illustrations depicting the person’s animal form, he chooses to include an actual photo of his mother, which appears soft and innocent in relation to the rest of the segment. The juxtaposition between Anja’s picture and her cartoon serves as a contrast between reality and imagination, two concepts that Art Spiegelman must balance to convey Anja’s story. Through these two factors, photographs and illustrations, Spiegelman captures his struggle with bridging the gap between reality and fiction when it comes to representing both victims and survivors, such as his mother and father. Due to the Anja’s death, and the lack of personal account from diaries or letters, Spiegelman is forced to reconstruct her past through personal interactions and stories from his father; however, Spiegelman believes that relying on the accounts of survivors is capable of muting the perspectives of the dead. In a conversation he has with his therapist Pavel, Pavel explains that the “victims who died can never tell their side of the story…”, to which Art …show more content…
Throughout the segment, Spiegelman is drawn wearing striped pajamas, which parallels and even emphasizes the stark, harsh lines that characterize the art style used. Additionally, Spiegelman chooses to use geometric shapes and hatching, an art technique involving the use of parallel lines to shade or create tone, while confining his illustrations in crisp panels, which makes the art appear stiff and unyielding like metal bars in comparison to the art style used in the rest of the graphic novel. In each of the panels of Prisoner on the Hell Planet, Spiegelman appears trapped by not only the borders of the panels, but also the stiff lines that smother his face, clothes, and setting, illustrating how he feels emotionally imprisoned and oppressed by the guilt he harbors from his mother’s suicide and their disconnection. He also suggests that these feelings were present even when he was a child – in one panel in the segment, he depicts himself as a child in striped pajamas sitting in bed as his mother reads him a bedtime story (105). This indicates that his relationship with his mother, even when she was alive, was a source of guilt, possibly due to the fact that he, unlike his mother, never endured the hardships of the Holocaust, a barrier that he believes causes a disconnect between themselves. To conclude the segment,
The segment opens up with a photograph of his mother taken in 1958, contrasting starkly with the cartoon hand that holds the image, as well as the sharp lines and grotesque art style Spiegelman incorporates in the segment. Although Spiegelman often includes interpretations of photographs, converting real photographs into illustrations depicting the person’s animal form, he chooses to include an actual photo of his mother, which appears soft and innocent in relation to the rest of the segment. The juxtaposition between Anja’s picture and her cartoon serves as a contrast between reality and imagination, two concepts that Art Spiegelman must balance to convey Anja’s story. Through these two factors, photographs and illustrations, Spiegelman captures his struggle with bridging the gap between reality and fiction when it comes to representing both victims and survivors, such as his mother and father. Due to the Anja’s death, and the lack of personal account from diaries or letters, Spiegelman is forced to reconstruct her past through personal interactions and stories from his father; however, Spiegelman believes that relying on the accounts of survivors is capable of muting the perspectives of the dead. In a conversation he has with his therapist Pavel, Pavel explains that the “victims who died can never tell their side of the story…”, to which Art …show more content…
Throughout the segment, Spiegelman is drawn wearing striped pajamas, which parallels and even emphasizes the stark, harsh lines that characterize the art style used. Additionally, Spiegelman chooses to use geometric shapes and hatching, an art technique involving the use of parallel lines to shade or create tone, while confining his illustrations in crisp panels, which makes the art appear stiff and unyielding like metal bars in comparison to the art style used in the rest of the graphic novel. In each of the panels of Prisoner on the Hell Planet, Spiegelman appears trapped by not only the borders of the panels, but also the stiff lines that smother his face, clothes, and setting, illustrating how he feels emotionally imprisoned and oppressed by the guilt he harbors from his mother’s suicide and their disconnection. He also suggests that these feelings were present even when he was a child – in one panel in the segment, he depicts himself as a child in striped pajamas sitting in bed as his mother reads him a bedtime story (105). This indicates that his relationship with his mother, even when she was alive, was a source of guilt, possibly due to the fact that he, unlike his mother, never endured the hardships of the Holocaust, a barrier that he believes causes a disconnect between themselves. To conclude the segment,