Reading Guide: Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Maus: A Survivor's Tale
Volume I: My Father Bleeds History
Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began
by Art Spiegelman's

• Publishing Data • Preview • Background • Discussion Guide • Further Exploration •

Publishing Data

Volume I: My Father Bleeds History published 1986

Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began published 1991

After Maus II was published Spiegelman was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize

In 1991 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held an exhibit entitled "The Making of Maus" and featuring the actual tapes of Vladek from which Spiegelman worked.

In 1994 The Complete Maus, a multimedia CD, was published. This CD contains preliminary drawings, journal entries, home movies, and tape recordings from the interview sessions.

Preview

The central concept of the work is that Art Spiegelman decides to try to understand his father by interviewing the father about his experiences of the Holocaust. The story moves back and forth between Artie's encounters with his father and his father Vladek's story.

Volume I: My Father Bleeds History is the story of Spiegelman's parents from their first meeting in 1935 to their arrival in Auschwitz in 1944.

Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began recounts Vladek's experiences in the concentration camps, the aftermath of the war, and the impact of Vladek's experiences on his relationship with his son.

Background

"Prisoner on the Hell Planet," the story of Anja's suicide in May 1968, was first published in Short Order Comix in 1973 and was later inserted into Maus I

Maus II is dedicated to Art's late brother Richieu and to Art's own firstborn, Nadya.

In German the noun Mauschel means "kike," a pejorative word for a Jew; the verb mauscheln means to speak with a Jewish accent. Both words derive from the Hebrew name Moshe

Maus is based on a series of conversations, including 20 hours of taped personal testimony, the author had with his father Vladek before the latter’s death of heart failure in 1982.

Maus is a serious form of pictorial literature that resists labels; it is generally referred to as a graphic novel.

Spiegelman himself asked that the New York Times move Maus II from its fiction to its nonfiction bestseller list though he had earlier referred to the work as a “comic novel.”

Most of Maus II was written after the success of Maus I.

Spiegelman creates a visual pun on the back cover of Maus II which connects the stripes of his father’s prison uniform with the stripes on the bar code.

Discussion Guide

Spiegelman depicts Jews as mice and Germans as cats in the Holocaust scenes. What characteristics of these two species is Spiegelman attributing to Jews and Germans?

Spiegelman also depicts Americans as dogs, French as frogs, Swedes as reindeer, and Gypsies as moths? Why?

What effect does the portrayal of the characters as animals have on your reaction to the Holocaust scenes?

Describe the relationship between Artie and his father? How does Artie feel about his father?

Characterize Artie. What are his motivations for interviewing his father about the Holocaust?

Characterize Vladek as an old man. How much of his personality has been shaped by the Holocaust. How do you feel about Vladek as an old man? Do his experiences of the Holocaust excuse his behavior in the present? Why or why not?

Characterize Vladek as a young man. How is he different from himself in his old age? How is he similar?

Characterize the relationship between Vladek and Anja.

What traits enabled Vladek to survive the concentration camps?

How does Vladek describe his experiences of the Holocaust?

What effect does Vladek's fractured English have on your perception of him and of his story?

Why does Vladek submit to Artie's interviews?

What happened to Anja? Whose fault was her suicide?

Characterize Mala. Why did she marry Vladek? Why does she stay with him?

Vladek accuses Mala of greed. Should we believe him?

Is Artie exploiting his father?

How is Vladek's past connected to Vladek and Artie's present?

What is the significance of Vladek mistaking Artie for Richieu at the end of Maus II?

What does Maus say about the Holocaust?

What does Maus say about the relationship between the past and the present?

What does Maus say about the relationship between fathers and sons?

Further Exploration

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