MAUS HAUS

Welcome to Maus Haus!

This website was created by BA Communication I students of the University of the Philippines Cebu in compliance to the requirements of COMM 103 - Narrative Studies under the advisory of Marie Rose Arong, PhD.

What is "Maus Haus" for?

Maus Haus aims to properly relay the analysis of the graphic novel. On this site, the group will provide an analysis that will delve deeper into multiple areas of study surrounding the worldmaking of “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale Part 1: My Father Bleeds History”. 

The group will utilize Tumblr to showcase the multimodal analysis. It will cover the graphic novel’s historical significance, narrative discourse, graphic novel elements, focalization, and symbolism throughout the site.

What is "Maus: A Survivor’s Tale Part 1: My Father Bleeds History” about?

“Maus: A Survivor’s Tale Part 1: My Father Bleeds History” by Art Spiegelman. In order to discuss the important themes and elements of this multimodal narrative, the group will create a site to reveal the members’ analysis through different forms: written, visual, auditory, and a combination of the three.

Maus is a World War II story that simultaneously tells Art Spiegelman's conversation with his father, who recounts his experiences during the Hollucost as a Polish Jew. The story is partitioned into two parts. Part 1, entitled "My Father Bleeds History," deals specifically with the time before Vladek was captured and sent to Auschwitz; his early life, meeting and marrying his wife, Anja, and trying to survive while the Nazis are rounding up all other Jews. In the latter part, Vladek and Anja are captured and sent to separate camps at Auschwitz. Part 2, on the other hand, Vladek recounts his survival stories at a concentration camp, which was considered a site of Jewish persecution. (Maus by Art Spiegelman: Summary & Analysis, 2019).

According to Eddie Campbell (2007), he describes the graphic novel as “a comic-book narrative that is equivalent in form and dimensions to the prose novel,” while also adding that “others employ it to indicate a form that is more than a comic book in the scope of its ambition—indeed a new medium altogether”. A lot of people regard Maus as the arbitrator of such a formal definition because of how it portrays one of the most tragic events in human history, the Holocaust, in a way that mixes journalistic reportage and personal biography. It also delves into Spiegelman's strained relationship with his father, as well as his attempts to come to terms with his mother's suicide. Spiegelman's style of portraying nationalities as animals - for example, Jews as mice and Germans as cats - is a powerful and effective metaphor for racism.

In the notion of understanding this graphic novel, a thorough critical demonstration and critical analysis in the story-world is necessary. The historical preoccupation and other elements that explain the narration, focalization and spatiotemporality give us ideas to interpret the composition of the graphic elements used.

Website by Group 1 of COMM 103 - B: BA Communication I

Alfaro, Princess Rikah

Booc, Jazmine Nicole

Composo, Hazel Jane

Cuevas, Steven

References for the Site Content

Lanser (n.d.). Point of View as Ideology and Technique. P.250-264

Bal, Mieke. (2009). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto. Print. 

Genette (1980). Narrators. Retrieved June 8, https://www2.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/intranet/englishbasics/NarrativeSituation01.htm#oliver

Marquez, G. G. (n.d.). What is Narrative? 5 Narrative Types and Examples. Now Novel. Retrieved June 8, 2022, https://www.nownovel.com/blog/narrative-examples-strong-narration/ 

Rana, N. (n.d.). What is Narration (Point of View) in Literature, with Types & Examples. Pandora Post. Retrieved June 8, 2022, from https://www.pandorapost.com/2020/12/point-of-view-and-narration-in-a-story.html 

For instance, there is an overlap of the verbal account which is Vladek’s life during the holocaust (past), and the visual which covers both  Artie and Valdek’s conversation (present) and Vladek’s experiences.  

Deemed controversial by most countries and even banned in libraries across the world, Maus by Art Spiegelman retells history through the use of a graphic novel. It utilizes monochromatic colors and non-human characters to share the past, one that is sensitive but also equally real - that is the holocaust. 

The history tackled by this graphic novel touches several areas and with this, the worldmaking makes the storytelling even more effective. 

In terms of narration, the characters Artie and Vladek provide layers to the narrative discourse in Maus. Particularly, it provides authenticity and legitimacy to the graphic novel. However, while these do stand true, it is important the acknowledge that it may problematize one thing: conveying an objective past. This becomes obvious when characters define a recollection together. 

Moreover, the novel is able to show how “history is never complete or finalized” according to Anderson as he states that actions made by the characters at present affect the representation of the past. This is because it sets the tale in both the present and the past as the narrator and focalizer at present discuss the past.

On the topic of focalization, Maus threads on this quite differently. In fact, Spiegelman uses both verbal and visual focalization, added with the link of memory to the point of view. Vladek serves as the primary focalizer that allows readers to only see one focalizer at a time where a narrator acts as the lens.

Still, Artie has a significant impact that challenges Vladek’s verbal focalization. This calls into question Genette's categorization of the narrator, as well as the potential of a dual focalizer. Multi-focalization allows the reader to notice the differences in the point of view between characters instead of only seeing one perspective. The interesting thing about this is it lets the readers witness how people interpret and perceive others' memories and narration of history.

Warning: Graphic images. Viewer discretion advised.

"Maus: A Survivor’s Tale- Part 1: My Father Bleeds History" depicts the most tragic event in humanity: World War II, and put a face on the emergence of the Nazi party and prejudice against Jews.

Initially, Jews from the lower classes were abducted when they lacked the economic means to defend themselves. This later got worse when Nazis started arresting elderly Jews who were sick and couldn't survive on their own.

Everything is under control by the Nazis. They took over homes, rationed food, and confiscated economic resources from the Jews.

When the war began, the Jews thought it was the best time to escape Poland. They spent a lot of time attempting to move from one location to another in search of safety. All of them are unsure of whom they could trust along their way.

The majority of Jews were taken to Auschwitz concentration camps, where they were starved and forced to labor until death, or when the camps got too congested, they were loaded into the gas chambers.

The Holocaust is one of the most notable events in world history and it's interesting to peak at the point of view of someone who lived through it. The number of lives lost in the event and the genocide alone makes Maus simultaneously moving and agonizing.

Germany’s literature legacy is an expansive one. From philosophy to fiction to verse poetry, Germans have made prolific contributions to humanity through their writing, something that has resulted in international recognition and, perhaps more importantly, a better understanding of the human condition. German literature is rich in beautifully crafted stories, especially from the eras of Sturm und Drang, Romanticism, and Realism. Certain German books are excellent introductions not only to German literature but to German culture and the history of Germany too. 

In the modern post-war period, the characteristics of German literature were dominated by both subjective and political explorations of Nazism, the Holocaust, war, and political division; these themes were written about in an attempt to help heal the wounds of the 21st century. The most important aspects that have marked the development of German literature, characteristics that distinguish it and were decisive for its evolution over time, have to do with the importance that the avant-garde represents for its authors. In particular, for the modern classics, it is of great relevance in the development of literature and will give access to a series of writers who find in them access to literature.

Maus' story depicted by the  narrator wanted to work with anthropomorphism in a comic book, and decided to use cats and mice as the center of this particular comic. Logically, the decision that the animals are chosen would work well to illustrate his father's experience in the period just before and during the holocaust. The narrator wants to portray a larger specter of memory than a first-person verbal narrative can achieve. Spiegelman uses the form of the comic medium to visualize the connection of the mind between the present and the past. By including both Artie and Vladek, he has achieved a narration not only depicting one side of the story, but two very different sides. As we know, Artie is not a survivor of the physical Holocaust, but he is a survivor in his own way. Both father and son have had to deal with the psychological consequences and aftermath of the Holocaust. 

In Requiem for a Nun, William Faulkner writes that "The past is never dead. It’s not even the past. " (1) It points out that the past never dies because humans have a way of adapting the past to suit their present needs. (2) This happens on a personal level, as well as on a political and collective level. The graphic novel’s characteristic way of demonstrating narrative levels and time makes this story excel as not only a narration of memory but also a narration on memory.

While numerous academic studies have done extensive work on the use of the animal metaphor and the complicated relationship between father and son, few have, according to Jeanne C. Ewe "focused on Maus as a visual narrative: its graphic arrangement of narrative layers and frames, its pictorial treatment of narrative time..." (Ewert 87). The animal metaphor is an act of focalization; it plays on the assumptions of the human race as not one, but divided into several. It makes the reader contemplate the idea of a natural hierarchy between "races". While cats are the natural predators and mice are the natural prey, Germans and Jews are of the same race; the human race. However, by depicting humans as different races, the absurdity of the Nazi doctrine is highlighted. We are not presented with the past and then the future, but rather a stacking, morphing, and collision of temporalities. This is much more suitable to explain human memory. 

The graphic novel medium not only allows it to challenge traditional expectations and representations of time, narration, and focalization, but the medium itself has the possibility of reaching a large readership. Most likely, this could include people that otherwise might never have picked up a Holocaust narrative. Chute argues that this is the gift of the graphic novel, its possibility to write a history that combines "formal experimentation with an appeal to mass readership" (Chute, "Comics as Literature" 459). 

Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman recounts his families' life in Nazi Germany in his comic masterpiece Maus. Art Spiegelman, an American illustrator, editor, and comics advocate, was born in Sweden in 1948 and is famed for his work Maus, which attempted to shape comic narrative as a profound adult literary medium. Spiegelman captures the tragedy of the Nazi "experiment," in which up to 6 million Jews were exterminated in concentration camps, using a variety of interviews and visual approaches.

Maus reveals the past's presence in the present and that what is in the past has never completely passed by dissecting the narratology and its layers both visually and verbally. Both the victim and the victim's children are required to present a genuine account and recollection of the past in order to tell the truth in history. The contributions of both Artie and Vladek obstruct and influence our view of the Holocaust. Their narratorial positions and influence are crucial to comprehending the narrative and history, as well as how their lives are linked to the past. In relation to the Holocaust, there is still a heated dispute about who should talk about the tragedy.  Maus, on the other hand, is not only a proper, but also an essential portrayal of the Holocaust's memory process and its consequences due to the Artie and Vladek's  respective roles.

Maus alternates between Vladek and Art, two first-person narrators. Analyzing the many narrative layers and narrators will show how different people have different views on the very same history and its implications on them. From both of their perspectives, the tale unfolds. We sense Vladek's worry and fear as he undergoes concentration camp life, and we experience Art's conflicting feelings, thanks to the employment of a core first person narrator.

Artie's function as visualizer ties the plot together as well. The role of Artie as a visualizer is present at all levels of the story. He can never be eliminated from any of the layers since he creates all of the pictures. As a result, the narrative layers are interdependent. Artie is given a voice using visual identity even if he is not verbally telling the narrative. Since we are not dealing with a single narrator, but rather "occupied with two narrative voices," graphic novels challenge standard conceptions of focalization and narration (Horstkotte and Pedri, 2011).

Our primary focalizer is Vladek, who orally tells the story and what he recalls. The presence of the visual element, on the other hand, creates a second narrative that is directed by Artie and puts him responsible for a form of visual focalization. 15 In other words, the graphic novel shows a double focalization, involving father and son, both visual and verbal communication. This allows us to see the differences and conflict between two narrators attempting to describe the past objectively. Spiegelman weaves narration and focalization by overlaying two levels of narratives, the middle and the inner, allowing us to visibly grasp Artie's difficulty envisioning Vladek's vague recollection.

However, there are some untold stories. The victims who died during the tragedy, as well as those who perished in the aftermath, such as Artie's mother Anja, are represented by the lost voices. It is difficult to achieve an accurate appraisal of the Holocaust's atrocities when most of the victims' tales were never heard. One of the stories that was told was undoubtedly Vladek's. This provides Vladek's voice significant control over the portrayal of the forgotten voices of the past. First, because he has innate power as a survivor, and second, because he has personal influence over specific memories, such as those of his wife Anja. The presence of both Artie and Vladek allows for emotional and factual reliability, enhancing Maus' credibility as a trustworthy memoir. It does not, however, ensure an objective account.