Spiegelman\'s Maus Series: A Discussion

Spiegelman's Maus Series: A Discussion about Humanity

Spiegelman's Maus series does as much to shed light on the human condition as it does to highlight the way in which humans can desensitize and dehumanize themselves. The idea that the book is about the Holocaust as well as Spiegelman's own experiences living in New York, and that the people in these stories are represented by animals, is a social commentary in and of itself. Each of the animals has been chosen to stereotypically represent each of the cultures and nationalities in the comic series. It is intriguing that human history is often better understood through the eyes of animal interactions than it is through the eyes of fellow humans. The series also helps to shed light on a topic that is rarely well understood, and one that is already very hard to talk about and describe to people who were not there to go through it. Spiegelman is able to illustrate the realities of everyday life in World War Two Germany as well as in his own life in quite an interesting and engaging fashion.

At the heart of life, for all animals including human beings is survival. The comic books are presented as tales of survival, and human beings often have a much easier time relating the act of survival, and all the things that may or may not be necessary to survive, to animals. In this way, Spiegelman's book is genius. In exploring the plight of European Jews directly before and during World War Two, Spiegelman is able to illustrate the struggle for survival as it is emphasized through the eyes of his own father's struggle in the Auschwitz death camp. The sheer human insanity and brutality, coupled with the hopelessness of the mice in the story, help vividly paint a historically accurate picture of the hardships faced by the Jews during that time. As one of the comic strips spells out, after some time of persecution and separation, the Nazi's began rounding up the mice to be shipped away to death camps. The mice had no choice, but their true inner dialogue, their inner thoughts are spelled out quite concisely as Spiegelman writes, "To go, it was no good. But, not to go- it was also no good." (Spiegelman, 19). This simple, yet powerful line helps give emotion and empathy to the choices that the Jews had to make, or even better, the lack of choices they had as a people during this time.

The way in which the Jews were first mildly persecuted and later killed by the millions in Germany is illustrated quite well in the series. The Holocaust did not start with death camps, but instead a slow but very steady progression of oppressive laws and regulations that left the Jews at a disadvantage both socially and financially. This slowly spread across Europe, and as time went on, more and more heinous laws were enacted to keep the Jews out of German society in every way. Human beings can justify anything if they set their minds to it. But humans often have a very hard time oppressing a certain group or culture initially. It often takes small steps to bring the persecution and fully weight of the cultural or religious anger upon a group of people like the Jews. The holocaust did not happen overnight, and the small but steady changes that occurred in Germany and other European states before and during World War Two seemed almost too slight to highlight at the time. But looking back, each baby step toward killing millions of people because of their culture and faith seemed to point in that direction. Hindsight is always 20/20, and the series helps to illustrate that fact.

Spiegelman also creates a social commentary with the division of the different "spirit animals." Each of the nationalities or cultures is a different animal, but in reality, all humans are part of the same species. The story is attempting to show the futility and hypocrisy of diving up the human race into better or worse parts, as the Nazi's did. The way that the Nazi's were able to make Jews seem inhuman to in order to "exterminate" them and remove them from Germany and other parts of Europe is brilliantly exposed and revealed through the simple act of choosing different, contradictory animal spirits for each country's citizens. In the series, Adolf Hitler, played by a cat, is quoted as saying, "The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human." (Spiegelman, 44).

The Nazi's as cats and the Jews as mice for instance, gives the reader the feeling that they are diametrically opposed culturally as well as in nature itself. Spiegelman also writes, "They treated us like insects!" (Spiegelman 100). While the situation surrounding this story is quite sad, it is another illustration of the layers that have to be peeled back in Maus for the reader to truly understand how Spiegelman's father and family in the old country survived during the war. Just like history itself, Maus is best understood in small bite, as the entire series is quite large to expect to be digested in one reading.

The Maus series also does an excellent job of spoon feeding the often brutal realities of the Holocaust to the reader, in ways that are rather gentle yet honest and moving. The way in which the mice are killed at the death camps is illustrated quite ingeniously as the narrator describes each group as they are about to be exterminated, acting in a similar fashion. "We've gotta get out! Let us out! Out! Out! [narrator: Then AGAIN it stopped]" (Spiegelman, 88). Talking and reading about how Jews were killed by the millions is often quite gut-wrenching, yet Spiegelman is able to craft a narrative where the medicine of the reality of murder is digested more easily as a tale about diametrically-opposed animals. This shows that society as a whole is often unable or unwilling to stomach reality, and therefore is often not able to fully internalize and make sense of the past. If humans cannot learn from their historical mistakes, no matter how large or small they may have been, then these mistakes may very well be repeated in the future.

Spiegelman creates an atmosphere within his comic series where open, clear discussion and dialogue can exist in a fashion that is more comfortable and palatable than visiting the Holocaust museum would likely be. He even states in his series, through mouse dialogue with his wife, "I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams. And trying to do it as a comic strip! I guess I bit off more than I can chew. Maybe I ought to forget the whole thing. There's so much I'll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics…so much has to be left out or distorted." (Spiegelman, 2). In a way Spiegelman is pointing out that humans are often overwhelmed by the complexity of their situations and the sheer terror in which their lives sometimes unfold. But he is also pointing out that one of the best ways for humans to digest these emotions and to truly understand the experiences of millions of Jews is through a medium like a comic strip. Humans have a hard time accepting reality head-on sometimes, so discussion through other mediums is often necessary and very beneficial.

Humans have the capability and capacity to do horrible things to other humans if given the proper justification. This desensitization and dehumanization also helps to create an environment where human beings no longer feel obligated to look after one another as one would with a friend or family member. The breakdown in human society or human kindness that occurs when the proper justifications have been reached can often be quite appalling. In fact, many people during the Nazi's reign did not believe that the death camps were real upon hearing about them. In fact, millions of citizens may have known about their existence but did nothing because the idea of a place where people were being murdered by the millions seemed far-fetched. This sentiment is explored in the Maus series, and laid out quite clearly in the opening stages of the Holocaust.

Examining the Maus series from a personal level, it is easy to make connections between the horrible acts that the Nazi's committed upon the Jews and human actions or inactions on the day-to-day level. People are often not willing to stand up to oppression or do the right thing, according to the honest, societal values that have been established. Spiegelman's Maus series is a call for every human to be vigilant and to seek positive, constructive solutions to their problems, no matter how deeply ingrained the racism or prejudice may be in some. The series also shows the reader that the war, the Holocaust, and other traumatic events did not end with the end of World War Two in 1945. These events have found their way into the lives of the survivors' families and those who have been exposed to the horrors of war and prejudice. Understanding that the Holocaust lives on in the human experiences of millions of people each day is something that is not often talked about or brought up in classrooms, but is something that is very real and hurtful for the people who have been touched by it.