Mause

An Analysis of Maus

The novel starts off with Art Spiegelman, a fairly successful graphic novelist, voicing interest in making a comic series about his father and the many war related stories he's heard throughout his life. His father, while initially apprehensive decides to tell his son all about his life. He begins by explaining that he was a handsome Jew living in Poland prior to the outbreak of WWII, and being the ladies man he was he has a girlfriend that he doesn't care for all too much, eventually he says he meets Art's mother, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and they marry. At this point in the story things are going well for Wladek (Art's father) as he begins to expand his textiles business with help from his father in law. However after the birth of his first son “Richeu” his wife sinks into depression so he goes with her to a world class Sanitorium in Czechoslovakia. Upon arriving he sees a Nazi flag and comments about how it was the first time he's ever seen it in person as he recounts various stories he's heard about Jewish persecution throughout Nazi occupied Central Europe.

Following these events Wladek discusses the German invasion of Poland and how he was captured as a prisoner of war which results in him getting sent to a POW camp where he is first exposed to the blatant antisemitism he's been hearing about. Following a brief stint in a labor camp and some well thought out bribes he makes his way back to his family in Nazi-Occupied Poland and he first begins to experience the hardships of being a Jew in the Third Reich.

From this point the story basically goes into greater detail about the various ways the Nazis would lure Jews into labor camps which leads to the gradual disintegration of Wladeks family as the Germans begin to take everyone away. Because of this he decides to send Reichau away with family friends where he thinks he will be safer, but sadly he doesn't survive. It also shows the degradation of any sort of...