Week 7: Maus

I really enjoyed and respected Maus in both a comic book and literary sense. Art has an interesting way of telling a deeply personal story about his dad and blending that into all kinds of historical setting, elements and scenarios that help shed light on the atrocities and realities of the holocaust.

One thing I really enjoyed were and the animal representations of the different races and nationalities in the story. I realize the problems that could come with that and I don't think that it is always successful (case in point, the Polish people represented as pigs), however I do think that the over all idea is successful as it "boils" it down in an easy to digest way. When you want to represent the holocaust in a basic way, showing the Germans as cat's and the Jews as Mice helps drive home the point that the Germans were literally preying on the Jews since the cat is a natural predator of mice.

What I really enjoyed though was the character of Vladek, Art's father. He is not totally innocent like I expected before I read the story, instead he is very human and Art doesn't shy away from this. Sometimes he is obnoxious and makes mistakes but by the end, i liked him and understood him all the better for it.

Overall, I really liked Maus and can understand why it helped legitimize Graphic Novels a literary medium.