These panels from the beginning chapters of Maus II focus on
Art Spiegelman’s worries over his ability to depict the horrors of the Holocaust.
Given the subject, his doubts regarding his ability to recreate such an
atrocity are understandable. At one point, he even wishes he could have been
with his parents in Auschwitz so that he could really know what they lived
through and therefore, be able to describe the events with more accuracy. Could
anyone, much less Spiegelman, reconstruct something as horrible as the
holocaust effectively?
Knowing the feelings of inadequacy Spiegelman expresses in
trying to reconstruct such a dark and complex reality, do you think his fears
were justified or do you think he was able to show the horrors of Auschwitz and
/or the holocaust effectively? Find a panel in your book where you think he accomplishes
this feat and tell us why that panel spoke to you.
Much has been discussed regarding Art and Vladek’s
relationship and Art’s frustration over the fact that he would never be the
“perfect” son that Richieu was. He talks about the spookiness of having sibling
rivalry with a snapshot and when Francoise says she thought the photo in Vladek
and Anya’s room was of Art he states, “That’s the point. They didn’t need photos of me in their room… I was
ALIVE!... The photo never threw tantrums or got in trouble… It was an ideal
kid, and I was a pain in the ass. I
couldn’t compete.”
Having discussed the dynamic relationships in this book,
what does everyone make of the final frame? I didn’t catch it the first time I
read it, but Vladek actually calls Art, “Richieu.” Why did Spiegelman choose to
end the book this way? What was the final message to his audience?
There is a saying from an animator named Richard Williams that goes "You don't know, what you don't know." This was a saying he said about the principles of animation. But, I believe this can be applied to anything unknown to us. In terms of Spiegelman trying to recreate the horrors of the Holocaust, he did know what it was like to be in the Holocaust so of course it would be difficult to recreate the experience. Having never been in the Holocaust myself I think that Spiegelman did a good job trying to get an idea across as to what it may have been like for those that have lived through Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteThere were quite a few panels that really spoke to me the gassing sequence is very powerful. The reason they have an impact on me is because of the drawing of the mice suffering. Mice, to me, are not something disgusting so I feel for any creature that suffers before it dies.
I think that just like as with Anja, Vladek was constantly thinking of Richieu too. It may have been Spiegelman's way of saying that Vladek is still wanting what used to be before the Holocaust.
It's hard to depict actual events because there are always going to be different sides of the story. What one individual may know and see may not but what another has seen or experienced. For example, we see this story from Vladek's point of view, not Anja's. We could have had some accounts from Anja's point of view but Vladek made it a point that he got rid of her diaries when she passed... something that could have easily put a different spin on this graphic novel.
ReplyDeleteI don't see Spiegelman being able to reconstruct the events of the Holocaust effectively because he wasn't there, the accounts were from his father who was slowly losing his memory, and lastly, it was a horrific event that I feel as if no one can recreate so that other's feel as if they are experiencing it.
I believe Spiegelman tried to relay these horrors to the best of his ability. I feel like he was successful to a certain extent because he used symbols in order to portray a message. This may take away from the seriousness of this graphic novel but it helps put things into perspective on how things were. The panels on page 276 made me feel Vladek's pain and frustration over the events of the Holocaust. The photographs on the floor symbolize lost people throughout his life and memories that he has to view through pictures. These are the only memories of these people--who should have lived to be as old as Vladek but couldn't because of the horrible tragedy that was the Holocaust!
I think the last frame shows the true credibility of Vladek. It shows that he is an uncertain man who has lived a rough and stressful life. All these stresses are really weighing heavy on him.
I think that the author chose to design the final panel in this way as a response to Art's original thought of wanting to be there and live through the Holocaust and as a response to Art's sibling rivalry with his dead brother.
ReplyDeleteThe final response from Vladek shows Art just how damaged his father was as a result of his life experiences and his age. Vladek became the man that he was as a result of having survived only to have lost so much. He lost his family, his first born and then later after thinking that it was all behind them he lost his wife. No matter how much he has survived, or how much he tried to move on and build a new life, a part of Vladek is still haunted by and trapped by his experiences.
Today as a result of the many tragedies that our society has witnessed we have outlets in place to help the victims of such tragedies. Such options were not available 75 years ago. Their options for help were limited, like when Anja was taken to the facility prior to the Holocaust. Today we have a better understanding of survivors guilt and PTSD. Art having the option of seeing a therapist was not something that many of his father's and mother's time felt that they could do.
For Art seeing his father so frail and then having him call him by his brother's name opened his eyes to the fact of how much his father has been holding things in. I don't think that Vladek called Art, Richieu, on purpose or to be cruel. I think that as Vladek got closer to the end he was suffering from dementia or some other mental illness that he has been hiding from his son. Art had already lost his mother to mental illness and I don't think that Vladek wanted Art to revisit those feelings from when he was younger. Art was forced to see the sort of man that he could have become had he lived through the Holocaust with his parents, but when his father called him by his brother's name he was forced to realize that he would have never had the chance to become a man like his father. Instead Art was forced to face the fact that he would have instead shared the same fate as his brother. He too would have been killed because his parents would have done anything to protect the life of their children so that they would not have to suffer what they did in the camps. There was no competition between the children of Vladek and Anja (not really) because Art lived and Richieu did not.
Any event like the Holocaust changes people’s ability to view the world. Art might get a better way to depict the events that happened to his family but no one could really describe or show the same pain and terror. People who even go through those events even have a hard time to describe what happened.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kailynn. Spiegelman wasn’t really able to reconstruct the horrors of the Holocaust. His father’s recounts are what only connect us to what happened.
I saw this panel and I ended up talking to my roommate about this (She’s been part of the journey of me reading Maus since the beginning). We were both sad that this, seems like, the final reaction between the two of them. This could have been what actually happened or this is used because it shows that out of everything that happened a sick Vladek was always going to remember the Holocaust because of how traumatic it was.
The bottom panel on page 201 really stood out to me. Art wears a mouse mask at his desk attempting to write MAUS on top of all the mouse representations of Holocaust victims. This translates to me as huge feelings of guilt. It depicts not only the horrors of the Holocaust but also the struggles families deal with after the fact. He feels a need to tell his father’s terrible story, but feels like an imposter riding on the pain and suffering of so many people. The tension he feels is so evident in that one panel, it has always stuck out in my mind.
ReplyDeleteAs a journalist and a writer, these panels hit me particularly hard. I certainly can relate (on a much smaller scale, of course) to the idea of tackling something so big that it feels like there's no way you can accurately display how big it really was, especially without being able to be an eyewitness. While I really don't think it's possible for just one person to recreate it on their own, that certainly doesn't take away from the importance of what the one person does. I look at it almost like a body. For the example of the Holocaust, Spiegelman did his part, along side all the other writers on the topic to bring together something much bigger than just Maus. They complement each other and work together to make the whole body. Without one part, it may not function as well (or we may not get the whole picture.) I always keep going back to the scene where they were being forced out of Auschwitz and they were just walking through the woods. People would try to escape and get shot, and particularly the scene where he thought the guy twitched like a shot dog hit me.
ReplyDeleteAs for the final panel, it felt like it was really up to interpretation. I don't even think that Art really had more than what we got. Sure, dementia was likely a huge part of it, but was there more to it? There's no doubt in my mind that Vladek loved Art dearly, so I highly doubt there were any ulterior motives therein.
ReplyDeleteI think that Art Spiegelman was able to reconstruct the holocaust for modern readers fairly well, all things considered. While Holocaust survivors are probably the best primary sources to recreate the Holocaust for other audiences, there are not too many survivors left to tell their stories. Therefore, their children are probably the next best equipped people to retell their parents' stories.
With that in mind, I would argue that Art Spiegelman does the best job possible for the child of a Holocaust survivor in showing the horrors of the Nazi persecution against Jews. It is evident from the text that Art does his research, as he actually traveled to Auschwitz in order to get the look right in his drawings.
I find the final frame to be perhaps the most emotionally evocative of the whole novel. The fact that Vladek leads up to this frame by telling Art of his reunion with Anja adds to it when we see Vladek's tombstone and learn that he was buried with the love of his life. Yet Vladek's slip in calling Art, "Richieu" is perhaps the most revealing line of Vladek's feelings about the Holocaust. Vladek has still not gotten over the loss of his firstborn son to the horrors of the Holocaust, and it seems like he never will, as he dies still holding on to his loss. Furthermore, it shows that Vladek's mind is slipping and he has forgotten Richieu is dead. "It's enough stories for now," evokes a feeling of childish bedtime stories that Vladek would have told to Richieu as a boy. The final panel wonderfully depicts the parallel between Vladek going to sleep and his final rest. As many Holocaust survivors would discover, it seems that only the sleep of death could be their final escape, and Vladek now goes to join Anja.
I think for what Spiegelman worked with, he reconstructed the Holocaust very effectively. It's hard to reconstruct a terrible time like that, especially in comic book form where it's not quite as visually captivating as say a movie of it might be. But I think he does an excellent job still captivating both our eyes and our brains. One of the most captivating scenes as far as horror went for me was when Vladek had to go to the restroom in the second book, and he had to walk over all the bodies. That part was absolutely horrible, and the dialogue he added on top of it made it oh so real, I could almost feel what he meant when he had to step over people, and how it might be him later.
ReplyDeleteI was a little confused by the final panels of the book, and I wasn't quite sure how to take it. I like the idea that Vladek was really just kind of letting go of all of his masks, everything that he was hiding behind, and kind of falling into what were his delusions. I think his brain was failing him, and he was longing to be back in the past, back in his memories. I wonder if maybe he wasn't really all there, and he blurred the lines between his sons. Either way, I can't see this as something meant to hurt Art. If anything, it may have been a good sentiment towards him. All along he's been fighting against this ideal of Richieu that Vladek loves so much, and in the end Art is given what he wants by being seen as Richieu, the "perfect brother". Maybe to him it was his father saying he loves him? Who knows. But I liked it.
Of course nothing, especially through second hand testimony, can be entirely reconstructed in narrative. Art does, however, employ very clever visual representation to effectively communicate the tone and gravity of Vladek's story. The mice, the pigs, the angry cats, the piles of dying Jews, the hollow faces, thick desperate linework: he presents to us something awful in a form we can understand. We still feel the weight of the tragedy and these peoples' suffering without witnessing disturbing photographs or realistic depiction. The stylization is the bridge to deeper understanding of the narrative. For that, I think Art is very effective in communicating a difficult narrative.
ReplyDeleteI think Art is showing us how damaged Vladek is, showing us the true toll this suffering has taken on his family. Vladek may seem alright and he puts up a fight to live strongly, but he has lost so much. He doesn't even have photographs of most of his family left. He lost his son, who he loved deeply. He lost his livelihood, never to experience the same prosperity again. He finally lost Anja, and he has never recovered from her suicide. I think Vladek is suffering more than he lets on, and by ending this moment with a slip of the tongue, we glimpse his weakness.
I don’t feel the need mince words on the first question. Does Maus constitute an “effective” portrayal of the Holocaust as an event that shaped the course of human history? Of course not. But the further I got into reading Maus, the more I realized that the book isn’t solely about the Holocaust. I really do think that Spiegelman is using the Holocaust as a vehicle to tell the story of his father. I think in many ways, his goal was to try to make sense of his father by learning/telling his story.
ReplyDeleteI resist picking a panel that I think ‘represented the Holocaust effectively’ for this reason. I think that Speigelman made overall choices (which have been discussed at length previously) that prevented him generating imagery/storytelling moments that can have an effect on the reader that is even proportional to what the Holocaust was. But again, I don’t think this is a deficiency on his part, I think he did this to put Vladek’s story in the foreground and the shocking and horrific imagery in the distant background.
As to the final panels, I agree with previous posts that ‘didn’t read much into them’. You have the obvious parallel of Vladek/Anja being reunited in death just as they were after the war. But other than that, I think the point is mostly that Vladek reached the end of his life, and consequently Spiegelman reached the end of his story. I also agree with a previous post that said that the issue of Art being called ‘Richieu’ is possibly something that actually happened, which means that Spiegelman never got an explanation, so he’s just representing it for what it was.
I personally don't believe that anyone can reconstruct something like the Holocaust. It was a massive genocide of mercilessly slaughtering the Jewish people. All for a tyrannical leader who followed an unethical mission. I highly doubt that anyone could show the exact horror that happened during the Holocaust, but people can get close enough.
ReplyDeleteIt is no surprise that Spiegelman was struggling quite heavily with the making of this book. Trying to replicate the events of the Holocaust is not that simple. We see this on the last panel on page 201, where he is surrounded by a pile of dead mouses. This is a clear example of his stress and how it is affecting him. And then it gets worse when the press come to visit. Adding pain to more pain.
The very last panel of the book was a very emotional piece. I didn't get it at first but I believe that Spiegelman was trying to be the best son he could be when writing this book. A classic case of sibling rivalry, but a sad on none the less.
In order to depict anything with supreme accuracy, the artist will always think they fall short. I understand the fear Art Spiegelman had when depicting such a story, other strayed away from telling stories of the Holocaust for this exact fact. I think that even a survivor's depiction would be tainted with other emotional factors. I do think Art Spiegelman did a great job of illustrating Vladek's story and over all story of the Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteThe final scene was such a sad scene for me, I too think it spoke thousands of the relationship between Art and Vladek. Vladek was a man who survived a lot and anyone who has been through any regretful situation will always wish for the way things were in the past over the future. I also think this frame says more than that, it speaks about how Vladek truly see's Art, as a gateway of his past, of Anja and his brother Richieu.
I do not believe the Holocaust, not matter how many things people write, create, or even images of it, can prove to the world just how awful this event was and is. Spiegelman does a great job grabbing the audience's attention and describing the horrid events that took place; I even cried at a couple parts of it, and I am not a crier. However, does it prove to me just how awful it was? I do not think so. The fear he expresses is definitely justified, but he does a great job at creating the story and drawing on emotions. One of the instances in the novel that hit my emotions hard was when the group found out that the cake was not made properly and they were all in pain. This group thought they were going to receive a special treat and a break from their rations, but they ended up sick and in pain. I could not believe this would happen, but I also could! Even the death of Hedwig in the 7th Harry Potter book did not effect me as much as this book.
ReplyDeleteThis ending absolutely killed me. I think it really shows the lasting effect the death of Vladek's child had on him. Richieu has a big presence in this novel even though he is barely in it. One of the biggest problems - not to downplay any of these events - is the idea of children facing the same destiny as the adults: torture, overworking, under-eating, and death. I hate to think this, but it is possible that of all the things Vladek said to Art this is the main thing Art remembers.
I think perhaps the hardest frames for me to look at were the ones within the gas chambers. Despite it being animated it was still difficult not to have a certain amount of empathy for these characters. This was such a graphic and disturbing event that no matter how shrouded the characters are as animals we cant forget their very real counterparts. I think the last panel speaks to me so much because of how Anja and Vladek were reunited earlier in the story. Vladek had Anja came together in the concentration camps and it is a very sentimental time, despite facing imminent death the two of them long to be together. After Anja passes away from suicide they are only reunited once again in death. The symbolism of their gravestone is a testament to there bond in their final days. The fact that Vladek refers to Art as Richieu, I see this as Vladek looking to him as this brother that he held in high esteems. I wonder if this event actually happened or if is the ending Art had hoped for.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to answer your first question as one who made a living in the arts. As for myself and many of my peers, reconstructing something as horrible as the Holocaust in an effective manner is beyond our mere human ability. We know this and I think it's safe to assume Spiegelman knows this better than most. The point of art then becomes a prism for greater understanding, questioning, and inspiration.
ReplyDeleteThe panel of the mice burning alive was the most uncomfortable and horrifying image for me. Along with drowning, I can't imagine a worse death. Then to read the caption - that the fat of the live Jews was needed to help burn the dead bodies was shell-shocking.
I found the end incredibly sad and simultaneously uplifting. I think Spiegelman captures a moment when Vladek is close to the end of his life. Both his health and mind seem to be slipping. At the same time, I believe Art has the closure he has wanted all along. Vladek calls Art "Richieu." I think it is perfectly acceptable to take this as a literal interpretation. My feeling, however, is given the context of Richieu in the story - the perfect son - Art has finally achieved validation he has longed for from his father. Art has now become the perfect son.
Countless creative works, both fiction and nonfiction, have been created to try and show the horrors of the holocaust. Many of them do a fairly good job, and I count Maus among those. But could anyone truly reconstruct such horrors efficiently? I'm not sure there's an answer to that question, and even if there is one, I think that the only people qualified to answer it would be those who witnessed the horrors.
ReplyDeleteOf all the descriptions and visuals of the holocaust in both books, the one that sticks out most to me is the bottom left on page 108 of my text. On that page, Vladek is discussing the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis when hundreds of them were taken from Srodula. Many of the children were understandably hysterical, and Vladek noted that when they couldn't be calmed, they were swung by the legs into a wall. This is a detail I have never known about, but given everything else I have read and seen about the brutality of the Nazi regime, I have no reason to doubt its authenticity.
The last frame was quite interesting for me. As one of four brothers, I certainly have experience in being called by the name of a sibling, but the meaning here is much deeper. Because we have reached the end of Vladek's story, he seems to have had a weight released from his shoulders. All along, he has been wracked by survivor's guilt because he lived and Richieu did not. I think that, in telling his story, he felt that he had repaid the debt in a way. More importantly, he now felt that Richieu would live on because the story had been told. Calling Art Richieu was his subconscious mind's way of acknowledging this.
I do think that Spiegelman was effective in portraying the Holocaust and the events surrounding it in stark, honest clarity. It's not an easy task for anyone to undertake, but I think that Spiegelman made a commendable effort, all things considered.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of horror present throughout the book, but when I think of a scene where Spiegelman effectively transported the reader into a specific emotional realm, I keep coming back to the page where Cohn and three others Jews are hanged for operating the black market. It's such a simple panel that conveys such stark brutality; the bodies hanging with the Stars of David pinned to their jackets, the soldier holding the rifle standing nearby in silhouette. It truly paints the grimness and horror of the situation in a vibrant, immediate manner.
For me, the final page offers a sort of final acknowledgement of the past. For so long, Vladek has been carrying the deaths of his loved ones on his shoulders. He has constantly wrestled with the mere fact that he, himself had survived when his wife and child did not. I think that at the end, after telling the story to Art, he has found a sense of relief. Or peace, as is perhaps more appropriate. He is able to acknowledge Richieu directly, without the weight of his survivor's guilt weighing him down. By relinquishing his hold on the tale, he has found a way to transcend his history, and return (at least mentally) to a happier, better time. It is, all things considered, perhaps the most optimistic ending one could hope for, given all of the horrors he had to endure. Peace of mind.
I do believe that Art’s fears about portraying the Holocaust are justified because it is an exceptionally daunting task to undertake. That being said, I do appreciate the book and believe that it depicts the Holocaust to the best of its ability. The testimony of what it was like does come from someone who was actually there. This comic does more than recount the past, it also shows the effects of the past on the present. This comic shows a great deal how surviving the Holocaust has change Vladek. For instance, he still is conditioned to not waste any food. So much so, that he takes mostly empty boxes back to the grocery store to exchange, and also reheats left overs until Art will finally eat them. It is because of this reasoning that I believe Maus shows the effects of the Holocaust on a greater scale than some other interpretations.
ReplyDeleteI really liked what Aaron Coleman said, “My feeling, however, is given the context of Richieu in the story - the perfect son - Art has finally achieved validation he has longed for from his father. Art has now become the perfect son.” This interpretation does leave the story on a happy note. Throughout the whole comic, Art desperately tries to make since of his strained relationship with his father. By deciding to make this book about the story of his father, he simultaneously, and maybe a little intentionally, decided to get to know his father on a personal and intimate level. Before Art decided to write this book, Art and his father barely saw each other. By taking an interest and interviewing his father, Art and Vladek actually became closer and developed what I would say a better relationship.
I don’t think it’s a matter of accurately reconstructing the events but hoping that somehow the audience will grasp the enormity of the Holocaust through the reconstruction. When the readers don’t have a very personal or direct connection to such a huge and terrifying event it can be hard for the reader to not feel some distance between themselves and the individuals who survived or didn’t survive. Even Art whose parents lived through the Holocaust suffers from a distance that can’t be breached. The best an artist like Art can do is reconstruct events and hope that readers will feel the impact despite no connections which I believe he does well.
ReplyDeleteI believe it was very effective because he doesn’t tone down the visuals. You are shown quite vividly what happened. In particular the panel of Vladek having to walk over dead bodies to get to the bathroom in one of the barracks and also the image of all the dead bodies in the train carts when the Jews were being transferred to Switzerland. Just imagining how they were real people and how the bodies were left to rot and had to be used as stepping on or pushed out of train carts because there was no other way to handle them disturbed me deeply.
In one way it’s a sad sign of how Vladek’s memories were deteriorating that he was beginning to mix up details such as names and events that took place mere hours beforehand. But it also seems to show that Art could never compete with Richieu in Vladek’s mind. No matter what Richieu was also on Vladek’s mind and that whenever he spoke to Art his other son was always present. In some ways it makes Art look as though he were the replacement son though Vladek would never admit it.
Like others have stated, no matter how it is depicted or described, the horrific realities will never be completely understood unless you lived it. As a outsider to the events we can only begin to fathom what it was like. Spiegelman does a great job of forcing the viewer to feel those thoughts. Allowing one to begin wrapping there head around how horrible it was.
ReplyDeleteThe ending definitely felt like a homage to both his father, mother, and even Richieu. As for the ideal son content, the quote Jennifer used I think summed it up. The photo and idea of Richieu is perfect. It will never grow up and make mistakes like Artie did.