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Essay: Trauma of Art & Vladek in Maus: Holocaust Memoirs of a Survivor

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  • Published: 26 February 2023*
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  • Tags: Holocaust essays

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Joshua Rice Foster

Professor Scully

Literature of Extreme Situations

October 18, 2018

Maus by Art Spiegelman is a novel detailing the author, Art, and his father, Vlad, having conversations later in life about Vlad’s survival of Auschwitz whilst Art is detailing a graphic novel depicting not only the story his father tells, but the actual conversations with his father and even his writing process. Both characters struggle heavily with their mental health, Vlad with his anxiety and loneliness, and Art with his depression. It seems to me as though this is more than a coincidence, and it is a message to the reader. Both characters have the same problem, they have no way of looking into the future or even the ability to focus on the present, they are stuck in their memories and the emotions that their memories bring, despite their lives moving past them. Maus is more than just a story of the Holocaust, it is a story of how traumatic events can blind you to the future and present and haunt you for the rest of your life.

In part 1 chapter five of Maus the reader is shown an earlier comic written by Art, Prisoner on Hell Planet. In it is detailed the story, as he recollects it, of Anja’s suicide. Art is depicted constantly in prison clothes as though he is trapped in this mental state of anguish and misery. Art screams from the figurative cell doors, “…YOU MURDERED ME, MOMMY, AND YOU LEFT ME HERE TO TAKE THE RAP!!!” most likely referencing the resentment described earlier in Prisoner on Hell Planet he received from family and friends who blamed him for not showing his mother enough love (Spiegelman 102-105). Also in chapter 2 of Volume II of Maus you discover that Art finds himself depressed despite his recent successes, “I mean things couldn’t be going better with my ‘career’ or at home, but mostly I feel like crying.” (Spiegelman 203).  Art is still haunted by the death of Anja and how that has affected his relationship with his father. He talks with his shrink about his depression, and mentions his relationship with Vladek and how his father made him feel inadequate, “Mainly I remember ARGUING with him… and being told that I couldn’t do anything as well as he could.”  His relationship with Vladek was also discussed in Prisoner on Hell Planet. “I was expected to comfort HIM!” Art said in reference to when his father fell apart after his mother’s suicide (Spiegelman 103). Art can not get over the resentment he feels for Vladek never consoling or comforting him after the death of his mother and the inadequacy he made him feel as a child and that haunted their relationship up until Vladek’s death.

Vladek is also still haunted by Anja’s suicide. He went through great lengths to try to forget Anja, much to the dissatisfaction of Art, “After Anja died I had to make an order with everything… These papers had too many memories. So I BURNED them.” (Spiegelman 161). This was Vladek’s attempt to destroy his memories of the past so that he could move on towards the future but his attempts failed as it is obvious he is still incredibly preoccupied with his memories of Anja. Vladek admits his preoccupation with Anja when Art confronts him about Prisoner on Hell Planet, “It’s good you got it out of your system. But for me in brought in my mind so much MEMORIES of Anja… of course I’m thinking always about her anyway,” to which Mala resentfully responded, “Yes. You keep photos of her all around your deskーlike a shrine!”(Spiegelman 106). Vladek can not move on past Anja’s suicide and his preoccupation with the past manifests itself most in his relationship with Mala. Vladek and Mala’s relationship is haunted by Vladek’s preoccupation with Anja. Vladek and Mala’s relationship is fraught with shadows of Anja. Mala resents Vladek for his preoccupation with Anja which manifests itself in blunt ways such as when Vladek attempted to give Mala Anja’s clothes, “I’ll tell you somethingーwhen we first got married I needed clothes… It was a year and a half after Anja died. He took me to her closet, and said, ‘All these are for you!’ I said I wouldn’t TOUCH her things! ..My god, how that man carried on! I swear, sometimes I think he married me because I am the same size as Anja!” Mala complained (Spiegelman 133). The relationship had broken to the point that in the beginning of part II Mala had left him because it was too stressful to live with him (Spiegelman 173). Vladek was never able to have a healthy relationship after Anja’s suicide, it haunted him to the day he died.

Vladek was also haunted by his memories of the Holocaust. His preoccupation with his memories of the holocaust mainly manifested themselves in his relationship with his son, Art, and his stinginess. In chapter 2 of Part II Art describes his relationship with Vladek to his shrink, “Mainly I remember ARGUING with him and being told that I couldn’t do anything as well as he could. No matter what I accomplish, it doesn’t seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz.” (Spiegelman 204). Art’s shrink gives the explanation, “Maybe your father needed to show that he was always rightーthat he could always SURVIVEーbecause he felt guilty about surviving. And he took out his guilt on YOU where it was safe… on the REAL survivor.” (Spiegelman 204). Vladek couldn’t handle the guilt of surviving when so many of his friends and even his own child, Richieu, didn’t. Vladek lost his son and a large percentage of his family to the Holocaust and he took this anger out on Art, because Art didn’t go through it. Vladek’s preoccupation with the holocaust also manifested itself in his stinginess. He couldn’t let anything go to waste, whether that be a match or a piece of telephone wire he found on the ground. “You always pick up trash! Can’t you just buy wire?” Art complained exhausted with Vladek’s cheapness (Spiegelman 118). Vladek’s cheapness also deeply impacted his relationship with Mala. “He drives me crazy! He won’t even let me throw out the plastic pitcher he took from his hospital room last year! He’s more attached to things than people!” Mala complained to Art (Spiegelman 95). Vladek was constantly haunted by his memories of the holocaust and that drove a wedge between him and the people he loves.

In the second chapter of Part II, Art gives us a widow into his life after the success of part I of Maus. The reader is given visuals of him being interviewed by a German, a Jew, some Americans, and a few people that I can’t quite the distinguish the identities of, but one thing is certain, they are all still wearing masks (Spiegelman 202). Germans are still cats, Jews are still mice, and Americans are still dogs. I think this is saying something very interesting. Even though the war has been done and over with for a long time, people are still haunted by the role their people played in the holocaust. Whether that be Jews haunted by the recollections of their older relatives or the lessons that they were taught by their parents who survived or the Germans haunted by the knowledge of what their parents and grandparents did, the Holocaust didn’t leave. The Holocaust is ever present in the lives of those entirely altered due to it and the holocaust altered the lives in varying degrees of just about every person on the planet. In that way, the world is stuck looking back into the past just like Art and Vladek.

Art, Vladek, and society as a whole can be represented by Angelus Novus. Walter Benjamin depicts this Angel as the angel of history, “The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the pile of  debris before him grows toward the sky.” (Benjamin Thesis IX). This angel is an accurate representation of Art, Vladek, and society in Maus, forever stuck looking into the past, and blind to the future.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. On the Concept of History. 1940.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus: a Survivors Tale. Pantheon, 2011.

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