Art Spiegelman’s Maus is one of the unique graphic novels in the genre of literature. Unlike other comics with super heroes and flashy graphics, Maus is a story of the Holocaust presented in comic style. It gives an account of Art Spiegelman’s father, Vladek’s experiences as a Polish Jew . All the characters mentioned in the comic have been presented in the form of animals, such as the Jews as mice, the Americans as dogs, the Germans as cats and many others . The framework of the comic is not only simplistic framework, but also terrifying as Spiegelman confronts the reality of Holocaust. It would be worth comparing Spiegelman’s Maus with Jeff Smith’s Bone. In terms of plot, Bone is a story of three modern cousins bewildered in an uncharted desert. They spend a year in the valley by making new friends and spending a year there making new friends and escaping from dangerous enemies .
The plot of Maus and Bone are similar in the way that the three cousins conflict with evil entities and massive armies for safeguarding the future of humanity in the story of Bone, while the Jews attempt confronting the catastrophe in Maus (Caswell & Filipi, 2008;Spiegelman, 2011). The primary feature of comparison between the two comics is that they are graphic novels with sequential art and illustrations, which narrate a story. While Maus is the representation of Holocaust literature from the perspective of survivor’s children, Bone is an epic adventure that parallels mythology. Maus and Bone have several themes in similar. Spiegelman and Smith have conveyed personality and emotion through their comics through diverse drawings, although appearing simple convey a great amount of information. Maus presents various incidents in which Spiegelman feels guilt towards his father .
Guilt is a unique emotion, which compels individuals to consider their responsibility towards others. Similar incidents have been portrayed in Bone in the form of Phoney Bone’s frustrations, which has been expressed through impatient gestures and scrunched eyebrows . Family is another theme that is common in Maus and Bone. In Maus, family relations have been strained by physical, psychological and emotional traumas encountered by the survivors. Similarly, Bone portrays the importance of family through the three cousins who get separated from each other and strive to unite. Power is another similar theme between Maus and Bone. While Bone portrays the corrupting nature of power, Maus gives an account of how the Nazi government exerted power on the Jews by snatching away their property and wealth . Maus also explains about power through the way the Nazis sanctioned violence on the Jews by sending them to concentration camps. In Bone, power could be witnessed through the actions of “the Lord of the Locusts”.
Both Maus and Bone use popular culture to reflect serious issues. Although Maus belongs to the 1980s and 1990’s it sounds more like a postmodern text and presents various characteristics that could be compared with Bone. The two comics shift abruptly between anguish and melancholy through loss, trauma, memories and threats. Maus and Bone seem to be fantasies as Maus takes the audience to contemporary period when the Holocaust actually took place, while Bone enhances the experience of a graphic novel by presenting high fantasy and entertainment (Caswell & Filipi, 2008;Spiegelman, 2011). The two comics are splendid graphic novels, which are not only linguistically appropriate to read, but also demand deeper understanding skills required to acknowledge the traditional fiction works. These two graphic novels actively engage the readers into self-conscious reading in the course of comprehending and decoding a multitude of literary devices, which include metaphors, perspectives, narrative structures, symbolism, alliteration and inference.
Spiegelman took every measure to ensure that the title, epigraph, genre, tone, imagery, symbolism look appropriate to the story conveyed in the graphic novel. Maus presents psychological trauma experienced by the Jews, including their labor conditions, which implies that Spiegelman has a great vision about how things look like in warfare . Human behavior, including sadism, cowardice, moral strength and heroism has been demonstrated in the graphic novel in an excellent way. This indicates that Spiegelman was well aware of resembling a novel in length by developing a narrative. Maus is a graphic novel with a rich yet complex plot, which depicts narrative structures that gravitates readers enthusiastically towards the plot. The novel presents contextual clues that are helpful for individuals who do not have adequate language acquisition skills. These features indicate that Art Spiegelman was definitely successful in conveying his message through the unfamiliar format of a graphic novel.
Reference
Caswell, L. S., & Filipi, D. (2008). Jeff Smith: Bone and Beyond. Columbus, OH: Wexner Center for the Arts.
Spiegelman, A. (2011). MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
