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Tim Kelley
Dr. R. Permenter
American Literature II
6 Dec. 2014
Misunderstanding Vladek Spiegelman
The graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman is a partial biography of his father, Vladek
Spiegelman, and partial autobiography of Art and his relationship with his father. Throughout the
novel, the reader can see the struggling and failing relationship the father and son have because
of the different times that they lived in and the far different experiences for which they
encountered. After reading Maus, the reader can see that Art did not fully understand his father,
including his strange tendencies and his trauma of the Holocaust. However, some evidence can
be found that Art did eventually understand his dad after writing and drawing illustrations for the
novel.
Ever since Art was a child, the reader can see that he had a struggling father-son
relationship with his father. He mentions a time when his friends left him and his father’s
response was, “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a
week…then you could see what it is, friends!” (Spiegelman 6), which is quite a harsh response to
such a young boy. Art is only about ten or eleven years old in that scene, which means the
Holocaust was probably less than fifteen years before. That means Vladek would still have
horrible, traumatic effects of the Holocaust fresh in his mind. Just from reading the first few
pages where this scene is located in the novel, it can be assumed that Art and his father probably
do not, and will not, get along too well.

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Throughout the rest of the novel, Art gets quite frustrated with his father. There are two
prominent examples of frustration, and those would be the jacket incident and the telephone wire
scene. The first incident was where Vladek threw out Art’s old, shabby jacket and replaced it
with another old jacket. Art gets angry with his father for his decision to just throw out his
jacket; Art states, “You really threw out my coat. I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it”
(Spiegelman 69). Another less dramatic scene was when Vladek was picking up a piece of
telephone wire along the sidewalk. Art states, “You always pick up trash! Can’t you just buy
wire?” and Vladek responds with, “Pssh. Why always you want to buy when you can find?”
(Spiegelman 116); Art’s frustration with his dad’s frugalness is evident in this scene. However,
Vladek went through the horrific trauma of the Holocaust; Holocaust victims knew that
possessions were few and many held on to as much as they possibly could. These people had
little to no money, so they become frugal and Art does not understand this theory. In Art’s world,
if someone needs something, then he or she buys it; he or she does not try and scavenge for it on
the streets. That idea was foreign to him, most likely because he was never actually forced to do
anything of that nature.
As author, narrator, and one of the protagonists of the novel, Art does not seem to portray
himself as any sort of hero, but he actually portrays himself as the frustrated son who regrets the
way he treats his father. He makes the reader feel like it is not only Vladek who was a jerk, but
also himself. After reading and viewing this graphic novel, readers get the feeling from the text
and images that Art began to regret the way he treated Vladek. According to Elmwood, “The
central problem…is the author’s need to write himself into a family from whose founding trauma
he was absent” (681), which is quite obvious with Spiegelman’s novel. For someone to write
about an event that he or she never lived through, it is hard to capture all the emotion involved

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and accurate information. Spiegelman shows his audience that he was aware that he did not
understand his father and that they were growing further apart; this becomes evident in numerous
frames throughout the novel, take for example the last frame on page forty. In this frame, Art
draws the scene of him and his father at a table sitting as far away from each other as possible; in
addition to that, there are objects between them and Art is leaning back as far as possible. He
knew the separation between him and his father existed and how their relationship was failing.
When someone is aware that he or she is growing apart from a loved one, then chances are that
person regrets letting that separation happen.
Spiegelman also shows his audience that he did not understand his father in the last frame
of the book. It is this frame where he strongly uses irony. Art asks his father about the diaries of
his mother and Vladek responds with, “These notebooks, and other really nice things of
mother…one time I had a very bad day…and all of these things I destroyed” (158) and, “I looked
in [the diaries], but I don’t remember…only I know that she said, ‘I wish my son, when he grows
up he will be interested by’” (159); Vladek was distraught by his wife’s death and when people
are stressed and upset, sometimes things happen like this event. He should have known, though,
that telling Art that his mother wanted him to read the diaries that Vladek burnt would upset him.
In the last frame Art calls Vladek a “Murderer” (159); this is ironic because Vladek is a war
hero, Holocaust victim, and a sickly man. This is one of many scenes where the reader knows
that Art does not quite understand his father, and his emotions are getting in the way.
Art and Vladek are quite emotional about Anja’s suicide. Vladek dealt with his grief by
burning the belongings of Anja while Art wrote his comic “Prisoner on the Hell Planet.” It is this
section of the novel where emotions become complicated and the audience can see Art’s
frustration with his parents, Vladek’s breakdown, and Anja’s depression. Art describes his last

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confrontation with his mother where she asked him if he still loved her; he gives her an annoyed
response. After discovering she committed suicide, Art states, “Congratulations! You’ve
committed the perfect crime….You put me here [in a metaphorical prison]….shorted all my
circuits…cut my nerve endings…and crossed my wires” (103); Art went from blaming himself
for his mother’s suicide to blaming her, then eventually blaming his father. Kolář explains,
“[H]is narrative is permeated by self-accusation; he ruminates that he might have saved her…if
he had not been resentful to her attempt to tighten their emotional bond” (230); this shows Art’s
complicated feelings about the suicide. With Art’s mixed emotions, the traumatic event of his
mother’s suicide, and his father’s actions, it is understandable that Art gets frustrated with his
father. He felt that Vladek burning Anja’s diaries was “killing” her memory and the only object
left of her.
Finally, although it is evident that Art began to understand his father and regret how he
treated Vladek, there is a piece of evidence that he has not forgiven him. Art made the effort to
visit his father, even though it was mainly for his book, he could have just called him on the
phone. For Art to travel to Vladek’s home and sit for hours and listen to stories, he must have
respected and loved his father somewhat. After all, he chose to write about his father. Readers
can find regret through tone and images in the novel. He also shows the separation between him
and his father, which gives the audience a feeling of regret; oddly enough, however, Art does not
give his father any recognition in the “Thanks” section of the novel or in the dedication. In the
dedication, he mentions only his mother. This can be seen as a puzzle because the novel gives
the feeling of regret, yet he does not give his father recognition in the dedication. One would
think that if a person was the basis of a story, that author would recognize that person and put

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him or her in the dedication. The audience may assume that even though he started to understand
his father’s problems, maybe he has not quite forgiven him yet for burning Anja’s diaries.
Overall, the readers can conclude that Art, who hardly understood his own feelings,
clearly did not understand his father’s while doing the interviews. This is evident through his
frustration with his father and his father’s tendencies, such as picking telephone wire on the
sidewalk or throwing out Art’s jacket. However, the audience can feel through Art’s tone that he
now understands his father after writing this novel and drawing the illustrations. It is
understandable for Art to be an emotional mess and not understanding his father since Art,
himself, never went through the Holocaust. It can be found in certain frames where Art shows
how he and his father were separated by not only physical objects but an emotional wall. By Art
showing the barriers between him and his father, he gives his audience a feeling of regret.

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Works Cited
Elmwood, Victoria A. "Happy, Happy Ever After": The Transformation Of Trauma Between
The Generations In Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale." Biography: An
Interdisciplinary Quarterly 27.4 (2004): 691-720. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6
Dec. 2014.
Kolář, Stanislav. "Intergenerational Transmission Of Trauma In Spiegelman's Maus."Brno
Studies In English 39.1 (2013): 227-241. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Dec. 2014.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus I. New York: Pantheon, 1986. Print.