Maus Analogy

                    After reading the book Maus by Art Spiegelman, I was curious about some of the analogies Spiegelman used in the book. The book was about his own fathers experiences in World War II as a Jew. But to make the make more child-friendly and easier to read, in his graphic novel he portrayed the humans as different types of animals. The Jews were portrayed as mice, the Polish people were portrayed as pigs, and Germans as cats. These were interesting decisions and although I could tell that Spiegelman made them these animals for a specific reason, I was curious about some of his decisions. I understood that the Germans were cats and Jews were mice because of their relationship in World War II was similar to one of a cat and a mouse. But why were Poles portrayed as pigs? After doing research, I learned that Germans call pigs swine, much like they called Polish people during World War II. This would also make sense because pigs are not exterminated like mice yet they are still exploited. So I think that Art Spiegelman's choices for which animals to portray for which nationality was very smart. I think that the animals made the book much more readable and I think if human beings had been drawn I would have been more reluctant to read the book. 

                   During the book, I realized more and more how helpless the Jews were during World War II, the Nazis weren't merciful and it seemed as if the Germans opinions of Jews grew worse and worse. It started out by just thinking of them as a different group of people. Then the were forced to live in "ghettos", and then they started to just be killed for doing nothing. The only Jew that survived had to hide. To the Germans, the Jews weren't human. I think that Art Spiegelman did a great job showing that in Maus. But the book also had some intensity in it. Although the book was a graphic novel about animals, there is still a scene in it where a mouse kills herself and three baby mice to avoid the Nazis capturing them. Even thought the main characters of the book are animals, the book was still very powerful and at times intense.

               "Ultimately, what the book is about is the commonality of human beings. It's crazy to divide things down the nationalistic or racial or religious lines. And that's the whole point, isn't it?" This is what Art Spiegelman said about Maus. I thought it was an interesting quote because it said what the author thought the book meant. And after reading the quote i thought about the book differently. I used to look at the book and just thought it was about someone's story about World War II. And that's what it is about, but it also is supposed to make the reader think more than that. It's supposed to make the reader think about why this happened. Why the Germans decided they were better than Jews or Poles. And that's why I thought this was a great book.