The complete Maus combines two parts of the story.Part 1,"My Father bleeds History"and Part 2,"And here my troubles began".It tells the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife surviving the holocaust.It shows Art Spiegelman interviewing his father,Vladek about his experiences as a Polish jew and a holocaust survivor.However there's a difference,all the characters are represented as animals:Jews are mice,Germans are cats,Non-Jewish poles are pigs,Americans are dogs,French are frogs.This haunting story told by using graphics captures the horror of the holocaust in a way that has never been done before.It also explores the extent of the psychological impact an event of such proportions leaves on the survivors and their families.
My Views:
Nothing in life ever happens for a reason.There are never any rational explanations about why or how things happen the way they do.Nothing is ever right or wrong or good or bad.Everything is relative.Everything is random.There are no heroes,no villains.There is no after-life,no heaven,no hell.We live and we die,everything in between is optional and at the end nothing really matters at all.How else would you explain something as horrible and devastating as the Holocaust?I am always left disturbed when I read or watch a movie about the genocide of millions of Jews carried out by the Nazi regime during world war 2.I hadnt expected a graphic novel to talk about serious historical issues and evoke a reaction in the reader.I had to go over the pages and re-read them to take it all in.I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I turned each page.
I truly admired Vladeks spirit,enterprising nature and resourcefulness even in the face of extreme adversity.I cannot even begin to imagine what he endured and his ability to hang on to hope in the darkest of circumstances just goes on to prove his strength of character.However when you survive something of this magnitude,it just changes something in you.Vladek was a difficult man to live with and Art makes that very clear.He hasnt made him the hero of the story but has narrated it just as it was.He even goes on to tell us about his fathers prejudice towards African-Americans.When someone has been through hell and back, there is always a price to pay not only by the people who go through it but also by the people affected by it indirectly.Art is dealing with his own demons (survivors guilt)and tries to find some way of allaying this guilt in the form of a comic strip 'Prisoner on the Hell Planet' about his mothers suicide.However I dont think catharsis is even a possibility sometimes and you just have to live on hoping to come to terms with whatever it is that happens in life.This story is very emotional because it is so real.
The horrors of concentration camps,Auschwitz,Nuremberg,the bunkers,the zyklon B showers are too
grisly to even imagine.The use of allegory to depict characters as animals works effectively as cats are known to prey on mice.So jews being mice is an apt metaphor.It provokes us to think about nationalities,races and our judgemental views.
It is scary to think that we live in a world that has witnessed such tragedy.It is not easy to write a story about one's own family with such honesty and I think Spiegelman deserves all the credit for it.I went through a gamut of emotions while reading this book.It just manages to change something in the way you think about life.
I unreservedly rate it a 5 out of 5.
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