Maus is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman published in 1980 that details his father's experience as a Holocaust survivor. It took Spiegelman 13 years to complete and is viewed as an important work that brought serious attention to graphic novels. In Maus, Nazis are depicted as cats, Jews as mice, and Poles as pigs. The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, being the first graphic novel to do so. It explores themes of guilt, survival, and race through Spiegelman's interviews with his father and flashbacks to his father's time in Nazi concentration camps.

1. Maus
by Art Spiegelman
Presentation by Alex Aherin

3. Art
Spiegelman
• Born in 1948 in Stockholm, Sweden
• He is a cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate
• Worked as a co-editor on the comics
magazines Arcade and Raw and spent a decade
as contributing artist for The New Yorker starting
in 1992
• Lives in New York

4. Art Spiegelman
(Continued)
• Parents are Vladek and Anja (both were Polish
Jews)
• Parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1951
• His mother committed suicide in 1968 after the
death of her only surviving brother
• Older brother Richieu who died during the war
• Began cartooning in 1960
• Was earning money for his art by the time he
reached high school
• Parents encouraged him to seek a more secure
profession, but he chose to stick with art and
philosophy in college (Harpur College)

5. Art Spiegelman
(Continued)
• While in college, he earned money as a
freelance artist for Topps Chewing Gum
Company
• Did not graduate, but earned an honorary
doctorate 30 years later from Harpur
• While still in college he worked as a staff
cartoonist for the college newspaper as well as
editing a college humor magazine
• He began selling self-published underground
comix on street corners and had cartoons in
other underground publications

6. Art Spiegelman
(Continued)
• In 1968 his college career was cut short when
he suffered a nervous breakdown (partly due to
heavy LSD use) and spent a month in a mental
hospital
• In 1971 he moved to San Francisco to be part of
the underground comix scene that was
developing there
• In 1972 he was asked to do a three page strip,
which ended up being the initial version of Maus
• Also in 1972, he produced a strip called
“Prisoner on the Hell Planet” which dealt with his
mother’s suicide

7. Art Spiegelman
and Maus
• Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus details his
father’s experience as a Holocaust survivor
• Took thirteen years to complete
• In the book, Nazis are depicted as cats, Jews
depicted as mice, and Poles as pigs
• The book has won numerous awards, including
a Pulitzer in 1992 (was the first graphic novel to
win a Pulitzer)
• Book is viewed as a crucial work in graphic
novels, bringing serious scholarly attention to
the genre

8. Controversies
• Challenged for being anti-ethnic, with particularly
strong outcries for portraying Poles as pigs
• Also challenged because people felt it was not
suitable for young readers
• Some have said that portraying races as
different animals takes away from the fact that
the Holocaust was a human vs. human situation
• Some people, especially when the book came
out in the 1980’s, felt that making a comic book
about the Holocaust was inappropriate

9. Major Literary Elements
• Some major themes: guilt (father’s guilt as a
survivor, guilt of losing their first son,
Spiegelman’s guilt about the success of the
book and portraying his father unflatteringly),
past and present, survival, and race
• Large amount of indirect characterization
through dialog and action
• Some important conflicts: obviously the
Holocaust creates a large amount of conflict,
also conflict between Spiegelman and his father,
and internal conflict of Spiegelman

10. Major Literary Elements
Continued
• Settings: New York, Poland, and Germany
• Major characters: Art Spiegelman, Vladek
(father), Anja (mother)
• Point of view: through Spiegelman in the
present and through his father in the past

11. Other Related Books
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree: A Memoir of a
Schindler’s List Survivor by Laura Hillman

12. Essays and Scholarly Reviews
• “Maus, Mourning, and Post-Memory” by
Marianne Hirsch
• Considering Maus: Approaches to Art
Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust
by Deborah Geis (collection of essays)

13. Critical Theories
• Commodification and commercialization of the
Holocaust for public consumption
• Maus as fiction versus non fiction

14. • Research and writing activity – have the
students look at how Nazi propaganda was used
(particularly cartoon propaganda) and analyze
the techniques used in a short piece of writing
• Writing and elements of literature activity – have
the students change a small section of the
graphic novel into pure writing (no pictures) and
analyze the effects it has on the story (was this
change positive or negative, and what things
were added to compensate for the lack of
pictures)
Possible Activities

15. • Is Spiegelman’s choice to represent the different
races as animals a wise choice? Does it add to
or take away from the story?
• Should graphic novels be considered literature?
Since this is a graphic novel, should it be studied
in school?
Thought -Provoking Questions