History Characters / Maus

!Anja Zylberberg Spiegelman

* {{Bookworm}}: To the point of SkewedPriorities in one instance, as when he couldn't find enough food, he filled his sack intended for food, much to the dismay of his starving family.

* FragileFlower: According to Vladek in some anecdotes, she had some shades of this, often being melancholic and terrified.

* ClingyJealousGirl: Supposedly, given that this is Vladek's story

* AmbiguousSituation: We don't really know what happened to her, as Vladek failed to find her, so she could either be a case of KilledOffscreen or, if she survived, she might have changed her name and settled down.

* {{Bookworm}}: To the point of SkeweredPriorities in one instance, as when he couldn't find enough food, he filled his sack intended for food, much to the dismay of his starving family.

!!Art Spiegelman

!!Vladek Spiegelman

* JewishMother: Writ large, in spite of his being a man. It is never played for laughs and stops just short of outright emotional abuse.

!!Anja Zylberberg Spiegelman

* DrivenToSuicide: Anya, but years after the holocaust, and not only because of it. She also almost committed suicide years before the Holocaust, from severe postpartum depression after Richieu was born.

!!Françoise Mouly Spiegelman

!!Mala Spiegelman

* NoAccountingForTaste: Her marriage to Vladek.

!!Richieu Spiegelman

* [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest Deceased Children Are The Best]]: Art resents him for this. He believes that his parents prefer their rosy memories of Richieu to their living child.
* InfantImmortality: Averted.

!!Lucia Greenberg

* ClingyJealousGirl
* WomanScorned: She tried to sabotage Vladek's relationship with Anja after he left her.

* TheUnfavourite: He often feels this way, having a sibling rivalry against his brother whom he never even met.

* CunningLinguist: {{Downplayed}}. While he may have issues with grammar in the English language; his ability to speak English, Polish, and German allowed him to survive as he managed to persuade suspecting Germans. In the case of English, his relatively comprehensive English skills win him the favor of a supervisor that provided him with food.

* GuileHero: His methods of surviving through the Holocaust can be downright {{magnificent|Bastard}}.

* JewishMother: Writ large, in spite of his being a man. It is never played for laughs, and stops just short of outright emotional abuse.

* CunningLinguist: {{Downplayed}}. While he may have issues with grammar in the English language; his ability to speak English, Polish, and German allowed him to survive as he managed to persuade suspecting Germans. In the case of English, his relatively comprehensive English skills win him the favor of a supervisor that provided him with food.

* AllJewsAreCheapskates: Zigzagged. His son and daughter in-law try to convince him to StopBeingStereotypical. He claims that the Holocaust, when hoarding food and supplies was a matter of life and death, made him that way. Mala comments that she and most of the family's friends are Holocaust survivors, and none of them are anywhere near as stingy as Vladek.

* {{Determinator}}: 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!

* 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.

* TheLostLenore: Anja's death affected her husband greatly to the point that he never really got over it, even though he got remarried.

* 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.

!!Francoise Mouly Spiegelman

The author of the story, he visited his father in hopes of recording his experience of the Holocaust.

* FrenchJerk: Subverted. She's shown as being very nice.

* NoAccountingForTaste: His marriage to Mala.

* {{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!

* DrivenToSuicide

* InfantImmortality: Averted. Hard.

* AllJewsAreCheapskates: To the point of StopBeingStereotypical by his son and daughter in-law.
** Though its arguably justified, and could be seen as a deconstruction of the trope--Vladek isn't a cheapskate by nature, he ended up that way because he spent years in Auschwitz, where hoarding food and supplies was critical to survival.

* IWasQuiteALooker

* TheUnfavorite: He often feels this way, having a sibling rivalry against his brother whom he never even met.

Art's father and a Holocaust survivor. He told Art about his experience during the Holocaust.

* GuileHero: His methods of surviving through the Holocaust can be downright [[MagnificentBastard magnificent]].

* JerkassWoobie: He was extremely cheap, drove his wife crazy, verbally abused his son, and was racist. However, he did went through the Holocaust and then after that his first wife committed suicide.

!!Anja

!!Francoise

!!Mala

!!Richieu