Maus: An Analysis Of Art Spiegelman's Maus

Art Spiegelman's Maus is a story that told well and can be understood easily be his readers. Usually a good story is one that is clear, understandable, and have a connection to the reader. The opposite of a good story would have parts in a story out of place and hard to understand for the reader. Art’s style to make his story better by using his comic skills in order to tell the story of his father’s past. There are many disagreements when deciding if Maus is is about his father’s story or the relationship between him and his father. Art Spiegelman portrays closure, timing, and iconic representation to give stories of his father’s past in the holocaust and relationship with him.

One of the approaches that Spigelman takes to guide the reader’s

The way Spiegelman lengthens or shortens a panel can make a moment go back in time or show the importance of a scene. He makes the reader use closure in order to get the timing in his story. Spigelman does so many times in Maus to go back and forth from present to past. He does this without confusing the reader, which is it makes his story well. On page 12 in Maus, the last two panels show a time change in the book. It goes from Vladek beginning to pedal on his exercise bike while talking to Art, then switches over to an image of a much younger Vladek. The last panel is circular shaped with younger Vladek in the panel(Spiegelman, Maus 12). Spigelman making the frame like that doesn’t confuse the reader because it is shaped differently than the other panels. He does it to separate it from the other panels that involved him in talking to his father in the present. Another example would be on page 15 at the very beginning. It’s a bleed to show the current conversation in the present between Art and Vladek(Spiegelman, Maus 15). If Spigelman would’ve kept it in a frame, he would’ve confused a lot of readers. As you see right after that bleed, Vladek continues on about his past after answering a question from Art. Also on that same page, Spiegelman uses a train ticket as a frame with dialogue in it. Spiegelman doing this gives the date of when Vladek rode the train, and it gave a specific date showing that it’s important. In some of the speech bubbles, there is dialogue with a lot of text or the speech bubble is stretched out. According to McCloud, the longer it takes for someone to read text, the longer the moment in the story is(McCloud). Spiegelman does so when he wants the reader to pay attention to detail in his story. He’s able to go back and forth in time when telling the story of his father and their relationship. Spiegelman usually bleeds back into