Speak of the Unspeakable: Memoirs of the Past
Germanyās 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.Ā
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 theĀ 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.Ā
In Requiem for a Nun, William Faulkner writes that "The past is never dead. Itās 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 novelās 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.Ā
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).Ā
Irrevocably, Maus is a reflection of challenges. The power struggle in defining the past is thus not unique to Maus, but is a widespread problem in our daily lives. It is an act of prosthetic memory. Mausā importance to collective memory is not because of Landsbergās idea of prosthetic memory, but rather that it works to involve the reader in the difficult process of both remembering and creating memory.
