| Junior's Academic Essays - Maus:
A Survivor's Tale - Representation of a Holocaust
31 May 2006
Maus - a Survivor's Tale: Representation
of a Holocaust
The Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus
: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman will serve as a
basis for exploring representation and stereotyping in a modern
text, focusing on the historical context of the Jewish Holocaust
and its reflection in contemporary times. Maus, while recalling
the author’s father Vladek’s tales of the war years,
is focusing primarily on his times in the concentration camps in
his native Poland, and also recounts the relationship between father
and son depicting the challenges of the two generations in understanding
their differing respective world views.
Spiegelman uses animals to represent different nationalities
and creeds, the most obvious being frogs to represent the French.
Most specifically mice depict Jews, whereby this is shown most forcibly
in the early parts of the novel, with a mouse holding up a placard
saying “I am a filthy Jew” (Spiegelman 2003: 35) while
being run out of town by the Germans, who are, appropriately, depicted
as cats; a strong, agile, intelligent predator which preys primarily
on mice.
We will show how the process of representation and
stereotyping is legitimised by the ongoing need to create boundaries
of what is deemed “normal” at a given time, and therefore
they are a condition of time and space, always changing. Blame will
be utilised in creating this end, and we will see the function this
plays in a society as a whole, and how historical cases of representation
can influence those that follow. Finally just how outlooks change
with regards time and through the generations will be demonstrated,
as will Spiegelman’s capabilities to represent historical
reflection by way of graphical metaphor.
In order to understand the issues of stereotyping
and representation we first need to understand why they occur and
what role they play in society as a whole. Richard Dyer has this
to say on reasoning stereotypes; “It is the guarantee of our
self-respect; it is the projection upon the world of our own sense
of our own value, our own position and our own rights.” Additionally
he remarks, “The role of stereotypes is to make visible the
invisible […] All societies need to have relatively stable
boundaries and categories" (1993)
So for the Nazi Party of Germany the “Jewish
Question” defined in such terms, a challenge to the values
and rights of the German people and by representing them as such,
the regime could seek out arbitrary extermination of the perceived
threat with what amounted to relative impunity at the time. In the
initial stages of such a process the attitudes and stereotyping
can be seen as subtle and emotionally channelled. As Stuart Hall
remarks, “Stereotyping is a key element in this exercise of
symbolic violence.” (Hall 1997) We know by historical record
that this, in the case of Maus representation of the Jewish Holocaust,
perpetuated into physical violence on a mass scale from the ghettos,
manifesting into genocide. From a familiarity of why stereotyping
occurs we must then gain a deeper meaning for a given scenario,
in this case the Jewish threat to the Nazi ideology.
Chris Barker defines this kind of interaction over
time and space by saying, “Ethnicity is constituted through
power relations between groups. It signals relations of marginality,
of the centre and the periphery, in the context of changing historical
forms and circumstances.” (Barker 2000: 196) This demonstrates,
within the context of time, views and conditions issues of stereotyping
is a constant reflection of the world we live in at a given time,
and is primarily concerned with power and autonomy.
Michael Pickering has this to say on how particular
representation of one cultural group by another defines both and
regulates their relations:
“Stereotypes operate as socially exorcistic
rituals in maintaining the boundaries of normality and legitimacy.
[…] They have a historical basis. […] It is simply
to say that stereotyping is always a part of ongoing cultural
processes and shifting symbolic relations.”
It is because of this Pickering goes on to say that,
“a stereotype may lose its common-sense value when it crosses
into a succeeding period or different social group […] (2001:
45) He uses the term “other” to represent those outside
a given defined group, deemed a threat or at the very least somehow
different.
“[…] the Other becomes the source of
threatening power to groups with relatively low social status […]
generating ‘a mythical narrative that converts social problems
into conflicts between distinct and identifiable entities (ibid:
195). Both Jewish and various Asian people have been scapegoated
and demonised in this way.
With this we can see clearly the apportioning of
blame upon a distinct group, in this case the Jews, shown vividly
when a cat with a German Army officers cap displaying the Swastika
(Spiegelman 2003: 53), says after Vladek and his comrades have been
captured in the ill-fated defence of Poland, “ We should hang
you right here on the spot!” Vladek has stated in the narrative
how the Jews were separated out from other prisoners, near Nuremberg,
and their captor says “It’s all your fault, this war!”
With the signifying of those who do not belong there
is also the signifying of inverse relational stereotyping of self.
For example the well-known Aryan race concept of racial perfection
which in this way could be deemed a “false positive”
stereotype. In regards demonising in this way, the stereotyping
can be socially legitimised by way of representing the Jews as a
cause for the Depression, while at the same time installing the
sense of “us” in the German people. For those who did
not live in these times such extremes of circumstance are innately
difficult to grasp.
In regards the generation gap, living up to his
father’s expectations, Art says of his father’s horrific
experiences, “I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a
reality that was worse than my darkest dreams.” (Spiegelman
2003: 176) This can be summed up by the words of Erna Paris:
“[…] the native born sabra whose existence
was removed in fact and by design from the boundaries of a tainted
Europe, had sculpted an altered Jewish self in opposition to the
so-called ghetto Jew.” (2001: 315)
Sabra, a Jew born in the State of Israel, after
the war years, in the Maus perspective can also be constituted by
any born after the war years, thereby not having that experience.
Internalised to the conditions of the concentration
camps totally unfamiliar values systems are represented in Vladek’s
telling of the barter system (Spiegelman 2003: 224) vital for survival.
In this instance he learns he could have a meeting arranged with
his wife for 100 cigarettes and a bottle of Vodka. One day’s
bread equalled three cigarettes, while a single bottle of Vodka
was equal to two hundred cigarettes. This demonstrates a specific,
extreme, world view of a given time and space and can therefore
be related to a key point in history. This gives rise to questions
of comparison and possible external influences of the imposed stereotyping
and representation.
Hitler made anti-Semitism a official government
policy. Yet as one example of historical comparison prior to the
1930s, Michael Berenbaum, Ph.D., Director, Sigi Ziering Institute,
University of Judaism refers to the previous century:
“In the 1800's, many people began discriminating
against Jews on racial rather than religious grounds. Many anti-Semitic
writers insisted that Jews were an inferior race. Anti-Semitism
became a powerful force in European politics. Many people considered
the Jews responsible for society's troubles. In 1881, for example,
when revolutionaries assassinated Czar Alexander II of Russia,
the Jews were blamed. Many Russian Jews were then killed in organized
massacres called pogroms.” (2005 World Book)
In closing we cannot ignore Spiegelman use of graphical
metaphors of day to day life while dealing with the harrowing nature
of his topic. While outside his father’s home he sprays bugs
with an aerosol can (Spiegelman 2003: 234), only after his wife
has said “It’s so peaceful here at night. It’s
almost impossible to believe Auschwitz ever happened.” Furthermore,
the couple find it difficult to understand Vladek’s behaviours
which link to the concentration camp experience when a plate is
broken where he insists it can be glued back together, and also
the reusing of a tea bag; a direct representation of historical
consequence and resultant behaviours which most would find unusual
if not unnecessary.
In conclusion we have shown how and why stereotyping
comes about, and that, in regards Maus, the negative representation
of the Jewish people was not a new concept and that Hitler simply
pressed on previously held ideologies of the past. The graphic novel
has, through the author’s own experience, revealed the difficulty
different generations can have in understanding the experiences
of those who have come before in regards its legacy and personal
impact. The nature of the text has allowed for effective graphical
representation of the issues at hand and is a thought-provoking
means by which to reflect on some very grave aspects of our collective
human past.
Bibliography
Barker, C. (2000) Ethnicity, Race and Nation
Sage
Dyer, R. (1993) The Matter of Images : Essays
on Representation
Hall, S. (1997) Representation : Cultural Representations
and Signifying Practices Sage Publications
Paris, E. (2001) Long Shadows : Truth Lies,
and History Bloomsbury
Pickering, M. (2001) Stereotyping : The Politics
of Representation, Palgrave MacMillian
Spiegelman, A. (2003) The Complete Maus
Great Britian: Penguin Books
Electronic Sources
2005 World Book, The Software MacKiev Company,
Version 9.0.2.1
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