By: Rebeca Cazares

The complete comic book Maus captivates the audience with an emotional journey through the amazing graphics and the intellectual writing.

 

The comic book is by Art Spiegelman and is a biography of his father’s life during the Holocaust. The book is an easy and quick read. The audience won’t want to put it down once the first page is read. The book even though it is a comic book, it has proved that it is literature. This book revolutionized comic books proving they can be serious literature.

 

The comic book has anthropomorphism (where animals are being used instead of humans).  Each animal symbolizes a nationality or group in this comic book.  The Jews are mice, and accordingly the Germans are cats.

 

The story emphasizes on the relationship between the son and the father, repeatedly showing the regret that was once felt throughout the story.  Personally the story brought memories back of the relationship with my father, so therefore the story line led me through an emotionally journey throughout each page.

 

Besides discovering how important relationship with our parents are, the story also deals with the hardships of the Holocaust.  It goes over that idea of having everything and then having nothing all due because of the war.   Trauma is also heavily seen, after having survived, the father deals with repression and the constant idea of someone out to get him.  The father saves everything (any metal he finds in the ground or any scrap of food) because that can be used which continually reminds the people around him that he hasn’t gotten past the idea of being at war.  The father doesn’t live in peace.

 

This book is Spiegelman’s masterpiece. Spiegelman’s creativity in this biography is innovative and deep.

 

5 stars