Introduction: Maus is a graphic history derived from visits Art Spiegelman made to New York to visit his father Vladek. Vladek was a Polish Jew and a Holocaust survivor of World War II. This survival and the visits Art made gave birth to Maus, which is a reflection of exactly what happened. In the comic all the characters are given animal names where there are frogs, mice, cats and so on. Thesis Statement: Cats prey on mice, which explains why Art chose to illustrate how the Jews, who were mice, were slaughtered by cats. (Miller,2011) Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Topic Sentence: Maus' artistic writing style involves going back and forth into the past and present, which was a way for him to bring out the originality of his work and to allow the reader to understand the growth of history. Evidence and quotes: Furthermore, the way Vladek tells his life story to his son does not follow any pattern and is also limited by his poor English language. And this is part of how a reader is able to distinguish between the past and the present, i.e. Vladek's past English is very broken and the present is improved. (Boin,1997) Topic Sentence: The way the author chose to tell this story is also a clear strategy he employed throughout the comic that follows a pattern relating to the same things he did to tell the story. He would visit his father to find content for his story, then they would have lunch and go for a walk which was a daily thing, also there was no spontaneity when Art went out with vladek, there was order as if he had his own place. finally, the last part connected the sequence with this extraneous father-son relationship. And by following that routine, Art was able to follow a sequence that brought the story to life. Vladek reveals some traumatic characteristics due to the Holocaust which in turn are reflected in his relationships. He started from the bottom once and ended up marrying his first wife Anja, who came from a wealthy family. So he was compassionate and caring for his family until the German invasion. After that he lost everything, including his first son Richiue, when he was poisoned by his aunt to protect him from the massacre. All of this affected his behavior, hence his estrangement from his son Art and lack of affection with Mala, his second wife. To some extent Vladek is depicted as stingy with everything he had after World War II. Topic sentence: Art tries to draw a clear picture of his rather detached relationship with his father. At one point he wished he had been born earlier. Vladek criticized everything Art did and constantly made fun of him over small matters. He was a practical man and his son chose something that his father could not do, which was to be an artist. Contrary to this, Art loved his mother and states that if the rain pouring on the roof had been gas and he had to choose between which parent to save, then he would have saved his mother. (Miller2011). Topic Sentence: These two relationships clearly show that Art's childhood was a troubled one and as such, for a reader to understand it, the past and present had to be interconnected as one. Evidence and Quotations: Part of the reason Art chose to involve the past and present in this narrative was to try to understand the genocide and the Holocaust through his father's experience and to in turn paint a clearer picture of these events for the reader. Comment: Combining eventsbefore the holocaust and those after the genocide is part of the philosophy known as postmodernism. This form of philosophy and the structure of Maus fundamentally explain the relationship between how time in narrative is processed and remembered. [Steingold 2015]. with this in mind then one can understand the use of post memory to weave together the artistic style, writing and his father's story of survival. (Shoomp, 2008) Topic Sentence: Vladek's survival in the Auschwitz camp and the horrors he went through after losing everything took a toll on Art later, directly and indirectly due to the trauma. Evidence and Quotes: His parenting skills were totally derived from his survival tactics during and after the war. [Steingold 2015]. When representing a story like this, taking into account the difficulties that come with it, such as memory distortion and/or prejudice, Art kept in mind that Maus was a mere representation of the story. The Holocaust cannot be truly represented in all its aspects and he knew it. (Powell,1998) Evidence and Citations: Spielgman's use of telling a story within a story in writing about the Holocaust is how he tells his version of the event. This was him consciously representing the holocaust from how he captured it from what he heard. He really wanted his readers to empathize with him; he talks to his wife about how inadequate he felt in recounting the events of the Holocaust. (powell,1998) The use of juxtaposition and framing of contradictory thoughts for the truth to make sense was achieved by bringing together the conversations of the artistic present with Vladek's past, thus contrasting two time frames placed together side by side. Initially this juxtaposition was formed by Vladek's messy way of telling his story and in order for Art to create his comedic narrative he had to follow a certain order. The use of this style helped the author maintain the originality of the narrative. Theme Sentence: Finally, the visual style of Maus serves to distance Spiegelman from his past. Evidence and Quotations: Furthermore, the visual style is used to add humor to the work and at the same time employ some metaphor. The illustration of Jews as mice and Nazis as cats is self-explanatory, and Spiegelman skillfully uses the comedic format to convey a serious issue. Comment: Spiegelman uses the postmodern style of adult comics to add historically recorded racism and anti-Semitism in the form of metaphor. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Topic Sentence: Metaphor descriptions are intended to elicit this type of response. Evidence and Citations: According to the author's description, "It's crazy to divide things along nationalistic, racial, or religious lines, and that's the point" (Spielgman, The Complete Maus). Comment: This quote, and the cartoon metaphor in general, is an allusion to the Nazi belief that "the Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human." Spiegelman is thus coining the distorted concept of racial theory. The use of metaphor is reiterated once again when Art visits his therapist. At the beginning of Maus, when Art is asked by a reporter if he would portray Israeli Jews as animals, he responds by saying, “I have no idea… porcupines?” (Spielgmann). In this scene and the next, all the characters are masked, one of the few times this happens in the novel. References Staub, M. E. (1995). The Shoah continues ad infinitum: memory and representation in Art Spiegelman's Maus. Melo, 20(3), 33-46..