A Personal Journey

Abstract

Maus is a uniquely powerful book. It is a personal journey through th e psychotic universe that became all too real in its e fficiency to ward a fina l so lution. Maus is very different from the many personal and b iograph ical narratives that attempt to touch upon the experience o f th e Holocau st. Maus, published in 1986, has come to be known as the Holocaust Comic Book O n the surface it is a contradiction , but perhaps th e form ha s co ntr ibute d greatly to its great impact and success The book is a collection of installmen ts th at appeared between 1980 and 1985 in RAW magazin e , a n underground cartooning magazine edited by the author. The book is sub tit led A Survivor's Tale. On th e su rface it is just that the tale of Vlad ek Spi ege lman , th e author 's father, as he journeys from Czestochowa in mid I9 30s Poland to th e gates of Ausc hwi tz in 1944. The story starts out in Rego Park, N.Y. when th e a uthor is ten or eleven years old. It is a brief introduction to th e interaction between th e a uthor an d h is father, together defining friends The father notes, fr iends? your fri ends? if you lock them together in a room with no food for a week th en you cou ld see what it is, fr iends . Thejourney moves outward from Rego Park, where th e a ut hor revisits his fath er to record his experiences of th e holocaust, through Europe in th e pe r iod of the Second World War. These transitions are masterfully done , a llowing exp lora tio n of th e deve loping father-son relationship with th e holocaust sto ry in the background. T he author's narrative skill and depiction of th e cha rac te rs in an ima l form (the J ews as mice, th e Germans as cats, and th e Poles as p igs) allow us to get closer to the characters than if they were depicted as humans. This technique allows us to feel th e pain without being overwhelmed. The author howeve r, is most powerful as he tak es us with him on h is own personal journey through the tortured relationship with h is agi ng fat her, a