Maus Essay

Maus refers to significant personalities and opinions, discussing Charles Burkhart, William Rothstein, Edward Cone, Peter Westergaard, Wallace Berry and Heinrich Schenker. By analyzing practical problems regarding particular pieces, like Beethoven’s Opuses 7 and 109, Maus concludes that “the performer is like an analyst, except that the performer conveys analytical information by performing…

In the graphical novel Maus, Valkdek expresses his ambition towards survival during the Holocaust. Over a period of time Valdek talks about the different measures taken, escaping death from the Nazi’s. The author is Art Spiegelman who is also Valdek’s son, and was published by Raw Books and graphics located in New York, NY in the year 1973. The book takes place in Poland and in 1939 were we see the first act of survival. Valdek was a soldier in the Polish Army and was called to fight against…

of Palestinians died from air strikes and other military forces. The people of Gaza faced brutal conditions with no food, water, or shelter as a major refugee problem arose. The Middle Eastern conflict between the two sides connects to Spiegelman’s Maus with similar…

with identity issues, as a result of his dysfunctional family life. As indicated earlier, when the narrator’s mother embraces him, he feels resentment towards her. There is a resemblance here to Art’s relationship with Anja. Both mothers, in Lost and Maus I and II, look up to their…

outcomes. Life frequently ushers people towards outcomes that could be beneficial to them, yet just as often misleads people to a disadvantageous and heart wrenching path, causing pain and sorrow to the hearts of many. Between the two literary works of MAUS and The Catcher in the Rye, sorrow burdens the hearts of the protagonists. Having both encountered countless instances of loss and suffering, they share the grief of a lifetime of sorrow. Yet despite the amount of sorrow both of them had to…

Rwanda and with segregation in the 1950s and 60s. However, without race, humankind is just humans who have had different genes from each other depending on how close to the equator they lived. The idea of race being a social construction is used in Maus to show how Jews were considered another race by portraying them as mice and not pigs…

throw an idea out there. Art isn’t a character. How can the author not be a character in a book that draws on his own life, you ask? We’re not suggesting that Art Spiegelman doesn’t exist. But just for kicks, let’s play around with the idea that Maus is about a character called Art who is looking for… something. A self. An identity. A voice. In the opening scene, we get a flashback to Art’s childhood. He’s eleven. He trips and falls. His friends abandon him. He goes to his father for comfort.…

Jean Améry, a survivor of the Holocaust, paints a very complicated and contradicting picture concerning the “necessity and impossibility of being a Jew.” The impossibility comes from Améry’s faith, or lack thereof. He states, “If being a Jew implies having a cultural heritage or religious ties, then I was not one and can never become one” (Améry, p 83). He has not, is not, and never will, be a Jew because he does not believe in God or partake in Jewish traditions. Before Hitler’s ascent to power…

It also paints a cruel picture of the military institutions as once in, there appears to be no way out. Derek Maus sums this idea up with “Catch-22 combines black humour with the quintessentially dystopian theme of a repressive society's victory over the individual. Everything that Yossarian believes should create a positive effect instead results in a negative one, and vice versa” (Maus). With options like that, it is easy for one to…

So, in “Mein Kampf,” Speiegelman is not only dealing with “Maus” overpowering and intimidating him. But, as hinted in my analysis, he is also dealing with a mid-life crisis and the loss of memory as he enters old age. He faces these problems by going into his mind, searching for these memories and reminiscing about them. It’s an interesting dynamic, the fact that he goes into his own mind to find the memories. Then he proceeds to relive or commiserate them inside his head instead of psychically…