Vladek Spiegelman's Maus

In the graphic novel, Maus, that mostly focused toward Vladek Spiegelman's life, the story expresses much more than his own experiences in the Holocaust, what Art portrayed accurately about various events of his father’s life, whom he is not close at the beginning of the story. Maus does not only tell the story of a human suffering and their struggles, neither the story of the Holocaust, however it is more than that it is the story of the strained relationship between the son and his father which develops later throughout the book. There are some clear signs that included guilt, a lack of comfort and support and an attachment to things rather than people. Most of this strained comes from Vladek and his strange mannerism. These behaviours and

To give an illustration, Art fell off his skate and his friends left him and the only person Art could find to give him a comforting act was his father as we can see on the very first pages of Maus. Nevertheless, what he could get were ‘If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week...then you could see what it is, friends.’ as an advice in life which Art had a difficult time to forget. There is a clearly demonstrated in (II.2.34) ‘Mainly I remember arguing with him… and being told that I could not do anything as well as he could,” Art tells his therapist. ‘No matter what I accomplish, it does not seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz.’ These shred of memories shown as evidences Vladek does not supportive his son like many other parents, which is one of the things Art wanted from his father since his childhood and included these pages on the novel. However, Vladek clearly loves Art and just wants the best for his son and succeed in life. He is desperate to maintain a close bond with his son, he survived the camp in the past, it makes sense that he would be on high alert always looking out for his family. It is one of Vladek’s personalities, what Art tries hard to capture and understand that everything was taken away from Vladek and by not getting close to everyone so he can not be

When he was taken away by the Nazis, he was probably scared by how evil people can be and end up prefers material possessions over people. He threw up Art’s coat, made sure Mala put his coat on a wooden hanger and is very strict about money and food. On (I.4.95), Mala has once said that Vladek is more attached to things more than people. Moreover, on (I.6.133) Mala says “All our friends went through the camps. Nobody is like him!” It seems like Vladek is still living in a war, in reality, unable to change his life environment as he does care about things more than people. Not to mention on he is distant from people most of the time, especially for Mala and Art. He is attached to old objects that they remind him of all memories in them hang around his mind like a film, they are not good memories, but just all struggles, this might mean his present sometimes has no good moments and that is why he is attached to the past. With this in mind, Vladek has different attitude clashes between Art and Mala and their relationship usually in tensions, which Art could not have understood at the end of every argument they