History ComicBook / Maus

Anyone who thinks comics don't get respect simply must read this. This is the kind of thing you would read for your literature class, if it wasn't a comic book -- and, indeed, some literature classes [[SchoolStudyMedia have started using it anyway]]. So has the German government's [=BPB=] or Federal Agency for Civic Education.

Anyone who thinks comics don't get no respect simply must read this. This is the kind of thing you would read for your literature class, if it wasn't a comic book -- and, indeed, some literature classes [[SchoolStudyMedia have started using it anyway]]. So has the German government's [=BPB=] or Federal Agency for Civic Education.

** Much later in the book Vladek and his cousin have a debate over whether or not to trust a pair of polish smugglers, and how to make sure they're trustworthy by having the cousin go ahead and send a letter with an all-clear, in yiddish. The smugglers turn out to know yiddish and german collaborators to boot, which leads to the plan being foiled and Vladek ending up in Auschwitz as a result.

* {{Determinator}}: Vladek. Though luck comes to play frequently in his survival of the Holocaust, Art admits that he admires his resourcefulness and determination to survive. Even when he gets older, he refuses to let heart attacks get in the way of his life; in Volume One, he nearly faints off the roof of his house and then throws his wife into hysterics when he says he wants to go back up there and finish his work!
* DeusExMachina: Arguably, one of the more disturbing elements of the Holocaust that the book depicts is how often Vladek managed to survive by sheer ''luck''.

* DrivenToSuicide: Anya, but years after the holocaust, and not only because of it.
** She also almost committed suicide years before the Holocaust, in severe depression due to post-partum depression after Richieu was born.
* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: Vladek still shows some trouble with speaking English, notably in sentence construction (understandable since he grew up speaking Polish and German). As the book so very clearly shows, he is far from stupid and also speaks the language much better than most Polish Jews, which ends up saving his life at last once.

* [[JewishMother Jewish Father]]: Vladek is very argumentative with Art, frequently using guilt to get Art to do things for him, making decisions for Art without consulting him, and not taking Art's feelings into account.

* NoAccountingForTaste: The marriage of Vladek and Mala.

* * [[JewishMother Jewish Father]]: Vladek is very argumentative with Art, frequently using guilt to get Art to do things for him, making decisions for Art without consulting him, and not taking Art's feelings into account.

* NotSoDifferent: After Francois picks up a black hitchhiker, she and Vladek later get into an argument over his low opinion of African-Americans, with her saying it's no different than how the Nazis saw Jews.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: So is it Anja, Anna, or Anya?
** Anya is the phonetic version of Anja which is a form of Anna.
** In Polish the name is spelled "Andzia" and pronounced "Anja". Probably makes sense to most English speakers who may not be familiar with "j" being read as "y" in Polish, but as a Polish speaker, I couldn't figure out if her name was suppose to be pronounced "Ahn-ya" like it's read in Polish or "Ahn-ja", like it's read in English. Both are legitimate Polish names.

** Americans are dogs. They are also the only "species" that look different from each other; members of all the other races look exactly the same as other members of the same race and can only be identified by their clothes.

* AbusiveParents: Vladek is emotionally abusive to Art, frequently using guilt to get Art to do things for him, making decisions for Art without consulting him, and not taking Art's feelings into account.
** This actually fits more under [[JewishMother Jewish Father]] more than anything else. Doesn't mean he's not a jerk, just that he needs to StopBeingStereotypical.

* TheUnfavourite: Art is forever compared to his brother, who died in the war. [[spoiler: [[{{Tearjerker}} The penultimate panel of the book leaves him with more reason to think this.]]]]

** She also almost comitted suicide years before the Holocaust, in severe depression [[spoiler: after the death of her first child]].

** The Americans are portrayed as dogs, perhaps because dogs are the next step up on the [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons cartoon animal chain of command]]: the cat chases the mouse, the dog chases the cat. And if it's a WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry cartoon, the dog frequently ''rescues'' the mouse. (Also US soldiers in WWII were nicknamed 'dogfaces'.)

*** Note that there are Poles and Germans who are portrayed sympathetically throughout the story and Jews, such as Yidl, who are not. As for the Poles, Spiegelman's reasons are complicated—he's ambivalent towards Poland because of his upbringing, so he wanted an ambivalent animal; pigs are not part of the cat-mouse food chain (but cats '''will''' eat pork), and are thus neutral towards mice (though mice will eat pork too); pigs are simply not as negative in American culture (his example being PorkyPig); the Nazis called the Poles "swine," which makes pigs a logical choice, given that the Jews, who were called "vermin," are mice; the metaphor works because pigs are not exterminated like mice, but still exploited; and so forth.

* ShamefulShrinking: In the opening of Maus II'', Art Spiegelman is shown shrinking smaller and small as reporters torment him with questions about ''Maus I''. At the end he is a small crying child. A helpful talk with therapist about coming to terms with his guilt lets him get bigger again, but then listening to recordings of [[RamblingOldManMonologue his father's speech]] causes him to shrink back into a child.

* ShamefulShrinking: * In the opening of Maus II'', Art Spiegelman is shown shrinking smaller and small as reporters torment him with questions about ''Maus I''. At the end he is a small crying child. A helpful talk with therapist about coming to terms with his guilt lets him get bigger again, but then listening to recordings of [[RamblingOldManMonologue his father's speech]] causes him to shrink back into a child.

* PunchClockVillain: One of the guards at Auschwitz.

* {{Jerkass}}: Vladek. In addition to being extraordinarily stingy with money, he nearly has a stroke when his daughter-in-law picks up [[ScaryBlackMan a black hitchhiker]].

** [[WhatTheHellHero Not to mention burning Anja's diaries.]] [[ItGotWorse And then]] [[YouJustHADToSayIt mentioning to Art]] that they were intended for him to read, effectively pushing Art's BerserkButton. But to be quite fair, the diaries would have brought some sad memories about Anja and the Holocaust.

Anyone who thinks comics don't get no respect simply must read this. This is the kind of thing you would read for your literature class, if it wasn't a comic book -- and, indeed, some literature classes [[SchoolStudyMedia have started using it anyway]]. So has the German government's [=bpb=] or Federal Agency for Civic Education.

** At one point there's a prisoner that Vladek sees at one of the concentration camps, who's trying to convince the guards to let him out ("My son is in the army, I fought in WWI and got medals from the Kaiser"). Vladek sees him as a cat, but the guards see him as a mouse (or at least the panel indicates Vladek was questioning the fellow's identity).

* IWasQuiteALooker: Vladek said that he used to be compared to Rudolph Valentino in his youth. From the one photograph we see of him as a human, he really wasn't that bad-looking, and he actualy looked somewhat like Valentino.

** And then horribly subverted later, where a panel shows Richieu playing happily with another child. [[{{Foreshadowing}} They're playing with a train...]]

* EverybodysDeadDave: Lolek was the only member of the Spiegelman clan besides Anja and Vladek to come out of Auschwitz alive.