Maus

As I was first reading Maus I have to admit, I found it rather slow. The topic of the holocaust, and conversely contemporary Jewish family life, is one that I find very hard to relate to. The story is more or less a familiar one for me; having studied to holocaust throughout my entire academic life, I didn’t find this narrative expressing any new information on the topic. The only thing that might be different would be the way in which this material is being expressed. This, in my opinion, is another area in which Maus falls short. I found the design and layout of Maus uninteresting; the illustrations were generally small and minimalistic, and relied more upon subtlety than fast, attention grabbing visuals. One thing I did enjoy in Maus however, were these subtle details that can be found on the pages of the comic. On every page, underneath the drawings, hid many expressive details that Art sprinkled upon the pages. I specifically use the word hid; these details often hide underneath the minimalism. Oftentimes one of these tertiary details was expressed as a single or several less; a very rough representation of whatever was depicted. I’m glad that Art included these details to add an extra level of immersion, but at the same time I wish Art’s style was a bit more attention grabbing.

Specific to Art’s visual technique, is the depiction of different races as different animals. Jews are depicted as mice, whereas Germans are shown as cats. The obvious symbolism is comparing the plight of the Jews against the Nazis as that of a mouse attempting to survive a cat. Poles meanwhile are depicted as pigs. I found this interesting, as the poles in this narrative are shown in several different lights. In some portions of the story the Poles are selfish characters who would neglect or even turn in the Jews to benefit themselves, whereas other poles in the story as shown as selfless characters who put themselves on the line to help Jewish survivors. I found the portrayal of pigs very apt, as pigs are neutral to the struggles of both cats and mice. In the story the Poles can shift in favor to either the Germans or the Jews, so I found this rather appropriate. An interesting touch that I enjoyed was the visual metaphor of using masks to show when a character is masquerading as a different race. This was one of those details that I might have actually missed if I was reading the comic a bit less intently. The masks would be denoted at times with one or two rough lines, it took a bit of imagination at times to take Art’s illustration in the direction that he would want.