Already here, one can note the skillful use of the graphic form of the novel. Artie’s father is a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, so this story aims to convey the story of the Nazi invasion (Spiegelman 23). The story is recorded from the words of Vladek Spiegelmann by his son Artie, whose names coincide with the names of the author himself and his father. Secondly, as mentioned above, there are two timelines in the novel, the first of which takes place in the present relative to the author of the time, and the second is the memories of one of the characters. The riskiness of such a step, which may be associated with national stereotypes, is justified by the need to vividly visualize the horrors of the Holocaust (Gavrilă 61). Thus, Jews are represented as mice, and Germans are portrayed as cats. First of all, a distinctive feature of the work is the use of anthropomorphic animals as characters, while the type of animal depends on nationality. Several vital elements characterize Maus’s graphic form.
This essay aims to research this graphic novel using additional sources to support the thesis put forward. Thus, Spiegelman uses graphic means to convey the narrative in more detail, paying attention to critical points and developing characters who think about the story being told right during the retelling. Graphical display of events allows switching between two time periods without losing the narrative’s coherence, even if one timeline suddenly interrupts the other. Considering the format selected by the author, this work should be examined precisely in the context of a visual rather than a purely textual narrative (Ewert 87). However, despite the chosen environment’s unusualness to reflect such topics, Spiegelman uses its features to his advantage.
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