The Silence of the Mothers: Art Spiegelman's Maus and Philippe Claudel's Brodeck

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe present article offers a comparative reading of Spiegelman's Maus (1980–1991) and Claudel's Brodeck [Le Rapport de Brodeck] (2007). Separated by their formal differences and autobiographical/fictional contingencies, the two narratives are united by their postmodern aura. They also appear to promulgate the well-documented marginalization of the feminine perspective in Holocaust literature. I argue, however, that Maus and Brodeck simultaneously embrace and challenge the tradition of Holocaust writing that privileges the male perspective and reduces women to the stereotype of helplessness and silent domesticity. They achieve this by foregrounding the liminalization of women's experience of Nazi persecution and relating the distinctiveness of Jewish women's ordeal to their sexuality, and in particular to their roles as child bearers and main child carers. Additionally, Claudel's and Spiegelman's engagement with canonical texts of European culture (e.g. the myths of Philomela or Orpheus and Euridice) points to the entrenchment of gender stereotypes which ultimately contributed to the sexism of Nazi policies.