Review of Maus by Art Spiegelman

I really enjoyed reading Maus by Art Spiegelman for many reasons, but I think my favorite reason is that he chose to use animals to portray people in this story about surrounding a tragic event. It really put a twist on how the story of the Holocaust is portrayed. I think that Spiegelman who is Jewish used the animal representations so that the viewer would not identify with the specific characters and would not assume that the story of the Holocaust is going to be told in the same way. This made it easier for Spiegelman to tell his personal story and to allow the viewer to be more involved in his world. 

I think that this story is a layered masterpiece due to the fact that it is based on his father's experience of a tragic event in world history–the Holocaust. It showed how this event affected his shaky relationship with his father. Funny enough, it also helped Spiegelman to understand and empathize with his father more. 

I think that the storytelling device of him interviewing his dad in every day life was very effective. As a viewer, I found it effective for the story to jump back and forth from past to present. It really helped me to empathize with all of the characters with all of their flaws. There was an interesting excerpt in the second volume of Maus that shows Francoise, Artie, and Vladek (Spiegelman's father) riding home from the supermarket. When they passed an African American, Vladek started to express his hatred for them and his prejudices against them which sort of parallels the German's prejudices against the Jews. I think that if it weren't for moments like this intermingled with the flashbacks from the Holocaust, this relationship would not have been made for me right away. 

From a design standpoint, I thought that it was pretty cool that the style of the art mimicked the tone of the story as it progressed. I noticed that it was cleaner in the beginning, but as the story unfolded, it became grittier. This quality created a lot of visual interest and complemented the content too. It was interesting noticing that because the content was so weighty that Spiegelman chose a lighter art style.

I was intrigued by how this story was a triumph because Spiegelman's mother and father survived the Holocaust, but also a tragedy because of how drastically it changed their lives forever and created emotional barriers between them that caused their relationships to grow cold. This was a truly layered story and a wonderful read.