One aspect of Art Spiegelman’s post-memory is that he feels guilty about not being able to relate to his father’s, Vladek’s, traumatic memories of the Holocaust. Although memories and stories had been passed down to him through his parents and relatives, Art obviously cannot completely understand what surviving the Holocaust must have been like. In Maus II, Artie tells his wife Françoise that he feels guilty about having an easier life in the United States than his parents did in Poland and in the Holocaust (16). Furthermore, Artie explains to his psychiatrist Pavel that some of the only experiences he remembers having with his father are arguing with him and feeling that nothing he did could ever compare to Vladek’s accomplishments. He tells
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In Stanislav Kolář’s article “Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Spiegelman’s Maus”, Kolář remarks that guilt such as Vladek’s is not an uncommon emotion among Holocaust survivors (232). Kolář states that Vladek feels guilty because “he has survived while the others have not” (232). He points out that Pavel’s intent during this conversation is to show Artie that Vladek transferred his survivor’s guilt down to Artie (232). Pavel’s point is that once Art can realize that he is carrying guilt that is not necessarily his to deal with, maybe he will feel less of a burden on his relationship with his father. By transferring his own survivor’s guilt to his son, Vladek unintentionally contributes to Art Spiegelman’s post-memory of the …show more content…
His post-memory affects him so much and is so engrained in his life that as a child that he begins to imagine being in Auschwitz alongside his parents (Kolář 232). He admits to having nightmares about SS men coming into his class and taking the Jewish kids away to concentration camps and also says that while he would take a shower, he would imagine that Zyklon B gas would come out instead of water (Maus II: 16). Art even goes as far to say to Françoise, “I somehow wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through!” (Maus II: 16). Interestingly enough, Art is very reluctant to call his morbid fascination with the Holocaust an “obsession”. As an adult, Spiegelman channels his fixation on the Holocaust into devotedly recording his father’s stories and turning them into the graphic novel Maus. Victoria A. Elmwood comments in her article “Happy, Happy Ever After: The Transformation of Trauma between the Generations in Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” that Spiegelman needs “to write himself into a family from whose founding trauma he was absent” (691). In other words, creating Maus gives him a way to connect deeper to his post-memory (Hirsch 18). On the other hand, Spiegelman wants to make sure that he is not appropriating any of his family’s memories as his own. He keeps his distance by using exclusively
In Stanislav Kolář’s article “Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Spiegelman’s Maus”, Kolář remarks that guilt such as Vladek’s is not an uncommon emotion among Holocaust survivors (232). Kolář states that Vladek feels guilty because “he has survived while the others have not” (232). He points out that Pavel’s intent during this conversation is to show Artie that Vladek transferred his survivor’s guilt down to Artie (232). Pavel’s point is that once Art can realize that he is carrying guilt that is not necessarily his to deal with, maybe he will feel less of a burden on his relationship with his father. By transferring his own survivor’s guilt to his son, Vladek unintentionally contributes to Art Spiegelman’s post-memory of the …show more content…
His post-memory affects him so much and is so engrained in his life that as a child that he begins to imagine being in Auschwitz alongside his parents (Kolář 232). He admits to having nightmares about SS men coming into his class and taking the Jewish kids away to concentration camps and also says that while he would take a shower, he would imagine that Zyklon B gas would come out instead of water (Maus II: 16). Art even goes as far to say to Françoise, “I somehow wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through!” (Maus II: 16). Interestingly enough, Art is very reluctant to call his morbid fascination with the Holocaust an “obsession”. As an adult, Spiegelman channels his fixation on the Holocaust into devotedly recording his father’s stories and turning them into the graphic novel Maus. Victoria A. Elmwood comments in her article “Happy, Happy Ever After: The Transformation of Trauma between the Generations in Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” that Spiegelman needs “to write himself into a family from whose founding trauma he was absent” (691). In other words, creating Maus gives him a way to connect deeper to his post-memory (Hirsch 18). On the other hand, Spiegelman wants to make sure that he is not appropriating any of his family’s memories as his own. He keeps his distance by using exclusively