Analysis Of Art Spiegelman's Maus

What is the significance of the authors decision to portray people of different races and nationalities as different animals? What effect does this have on the understanding and impact of the story?

Art Spiegelman’s horrifying graphic novel Maus depicts the struggles and pain endured by the Jews during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s choice to portray the people in Maus as different animals, depending on their race, nationality and religion effected how the readers understood the story by reinforcing how inhuman and draconian the actions the Nazis’ directed were. It also impacted the brutality of the event, by signifying that the reality of the Holocaust is too harsh. Furthermore, the cat, mouse and dog metaphors created greater depth into how the Jews lived, and were reduced to animal-like instincts in order to survive.

The Nazis controlled one of the most outrageous and cruel events in history known to this day. Led by Adolf Hitler, this detrimental ritual known as the final solution included punishing, and ultimately killing anyone who differentiated from the rest of Germany, these included gypsies, gay people and Jews. This inhuman conduct shown by the Nazis clearly resembles animal behaviour, therefore it was immensely relatable to represent them as predatory cats. It would be contradicting

Although by drawing the characters as animals the mental suffering is minimised. Providing a readable story. In the segment “prisoner on hell planet” the characters are drawn as human, this justaposes against the rest of the book. It is deep and painful, and sends shivers down the readers’ spine. If the whole story was written like this that it would be too mentally traumatising to read. Therefor displaying the characters as animals lessened the discomfort and made it palatable to people who may otherwise steer away from the realistic tragedy, that needs to be