American cartoonist Art Spiegelman’s Maus is considered a comic masterpiece and the two-volume telling the horrors of the Holocaust is a winner of Pulitzer Prize. Art’s father, Vladek was a Polish Jew, who survived the Holocaust. The essay looks at MAUS graphic novel, its artwork and how the author uses those images to tell a compelling story. Maus is considered to be as an intellectually substantive graphic novel.
Spiegelman has depicted Germans as cats and Jews as mice and Germans and Poles as pigs cats in the graphic novel. The purpose is to show Germans as the hunter and the Jews as the hunted. Although the characters are animal cartoons, they do not belittle the story or do injustice to the storyline in anyway. This is because those animals behave like humans and act like most people. The storyline does full justice to the functional history of the Holocaust and forces the readers to look back at the large scale brutality of Holocaust.
The generic icons as characters are animals and one might ask as to how mice can work as an allegory for the representation of the Jews. It is argued by critics that Spiegelman’s decision to use animals and using mice as the Jewish icon shoots from an emergency in symbolic representation. He employs animal characters with humanoid qualities. The iconography of the characters faces the readers to observe what they are wearing, what they are saying and what equipment they use. Still, Maus representation of those characters is more abstract in nature as compared to comics as the characters look the same except for their different clothing. This compels the reader to pay more attention to what they are wearing and what they say and do. It will not be easy to make out which character is which, if it was not for what they are wearing or saying. This aspect of the graphic work in Maus draws further attention to the Holocaust narrative itself. The abstraction of the graphic images helps to draw the reader into the narrative in an effortless way and create a higher awareness of the historical experience and event. Because of the lack of definitive iconography, the readers become the characters themselves within the narrative. Thus, Maus is successful in evoking greater participation from the reader. The artists draw the characters in a minimalistic style and thus there is a higher focus on story rather than the artwork.
The graphic novel is done in black-and-white panels that meet at a 90-degree angle in the corners. At times, he inserts jagged-bordered panel, for example, where the Nazi cat exclaims: “Here they are!” and Vladek carries a shocked look on his face. The shift from smooth lines to jagged ones interrupt the reader suddenly and acts as an interjection. The interruption is further highlighted by the slightly tilted angle of the jagged panel and its effect on the neighboring panels. The framing of the panels, their borders, and arrangement add to the fluency for the riders. Maus’s black-and-white panels carry thick black borders, but the artist often violates the grid arrangement of the panel throughout the graphic novel. The panel borders are mostly straight but sometimes carry jagged or can be wavy. The wavy shape represents the past tense in the story line, for example when that Vladek reflects on his World War II experiences. Moreover, as Maus takes the reader back to the past most of the time, the wavy panels are seen to dominate the page. Spiegelman makes use of the panel borders and their shapes to tell the story effectively. By making those panels in a certain way, he is able to give a perception of time that is fluid. There are panels within panels and circular panels too at times. Another variation is the fractured panels where the right edge of the first panel and left edge of the second panel are splintered. The plan is to let the reader know that the conversation is going on via an electronic device such as telephone. Although the characters are many miles away, the fractured panel border places them side by side as if they are looking at each other directly. The deliberate sequencing and the size of a panel highlights a certain event or importance. The larger panel forces the reader to pause and take the time to understand the importance of a moment. The panels display different events, and the reader moves back in past sometimes. Is seen that some panels are without border and carry only the text, for example, page 28 and 31. The purpose here is to brief the reader about the event to unfold.
Although Maus is graphic in nature, the intensified graphic work by the Spiegelman forces the readers to take the story seriously. The artist attempts to generate a functional history of the Holocaust through its readership by creating a sequence of events that propel the story forward. He has used the graphic medium to express symbols that are often more problematic to attain in literature. The graphic medium does a better job here to appeal to the perception of the reader without the need for literacy. For example, one of the most common icons in Maus is Swastika. In a scene where Vladek is exercising, the readers can easily note his tattoo when in concentration camp. The tattoo and Swastika represent the influence of the graphics within Maus and draws readers’ attention continuously through their reading and evoke a much rather than just imagining the description merely through narrative.
The chronologically ordered fragmented memories in Maus lend it a greater structural quality. The artist makes use of visual codes to create graphic as well as textual effects, and one comes across different visual and textual elements placed outside or across panels on close analyzes. Some of those frames and panels carry high emotions, and often close-up frames are used to express stronger emotions. The illustrator makes use of the line sketches to convey an idea and create a unique psychological impact. All the negative spaces in the panels are filled with black or black-and-white lines. Those dark shadowy tones remind one of the Holocaust. The speech balloons different in shape and size but most of them are rectangular with round corners. Spiegelman uses different voices within the caption boxes that can get jagged lines to show linguistic text is high on energy and carrying exclamations. The artist draws inverted triangles to represent cries and screams from the coming from a mouse, thus creating a kind of vulnerability around them. Those minute details add emotions in the narrative and keep the reader involved. At times, the artist fills the character with black color completely, and one can just see their black silhouette. The purpose here is to draw more attention to the text written in the speech box (Spiegelman 17).
On one page, Spiegelman struggles to tell his own story along with his fathers’ experience, where he shows a man with a mask on. By doing so, the artist labels his story to be different from the historical event and as a personal one. Wearing of mask shows that Spiegelman did not actually experience the Holocaust. The pile of dead mice around perhaps did not experience the event. The graphic sends a message to the reader that they will not be able to understand the event without having experienced it.
The graphic novels control the visual and verbal relationship, thus allowing them to achieve two separate objectives at once. The image based nature of Maus enhances its literary qualities and involves the reader within the functional history in a powerful way. The reader can easily understand the visual representation of the Holocaust in Maus. The authorial voice of the text draws the reader into the narrative world, and the abstract nature of the icons allow the reader to be a part of the scene. The presence of the reader and his interaction is essential for the understanding of the graphic novel. The use of animal imagery expresses the horrific violence of the Holocaust. Panels are uses as a narrative structure to convey the complicated story in a chronological arrangement.
Works Cited
Spiegelman, Art."Maus." A Penguin book. 1980. Web. 13 April. 2016.
