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by Molly C. Blau

I find it on the high bookshelf—Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. I’ve heard about it. It’s about the Holocaust. Mice play the Jews, and cats play the German Nazis. I understand it already. Cats are predators to mice. That’s easy enough. I start reading. The Polish people are pigs. Wait a minute, I don’t get it. Why are they pigs? I’m getting confused. I want to give up. Instead, I pick it up and start again.

We begin as moody troubleshooters: we see a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit—we either chop off a corner or throw the thing away.

What is a stereotype besides a way of grouping things in order to understand them in a complete and perfectly organized way? To say that something didn’t fit would be an admission that we are unsure of the world we are living in—a frightening thought. Further, we are often conditioned through art to recognize these stereotypes without thought and to react identically as a community—a means of creating and controlling an ideal society. Theater theorist and playwright Bertolt Brecht says of European theater, “It is well known that contact between audience and stage is normally made on the basis of empathy” (136). The goal is often to make audiences identify with the characters and the stories so that they will reach a natural state of controlled catharsis at the end. Many audiences have thus learned to expect and enjoy such a style.

Audiences seek art that will pick them up and pull them along for the entire ride. Underground comic, illustrator, and magazine editor Art Spiegelman meets that desire in his novel-sized comic Maus. Spiegelman describes his work: “The goal was to get people moving forward, to get my eye and thought organized enough so that one could relatively, seamlessly, be able to become absorbed in the narrative” (Jun 10). A story that absorbs the audience into its own unslowing whirlwind sounds a lot like Brecht’s description of the cathartic theater of control. However, Spiegelman’s works haven’t always had the same goal. In his early career, the question that motivated his art was, “How many obstacles could you put in somebody’s path before the reader just caved in and couldn’t handle it anymore?” (Juno, 8). The goal was to stilt catharsis—to kill it in its tracks in order to provoke active thought. I read his 1972 comic strip “Skinless Perkins.” Rather, I follow it—there are no words. I follow a suited skeleton who moves through a somersault, panel by panel. Like the rolling body, I am smoothly and easily tumbling through the panels. Out of nowhere, his shadow appears, knocks me from my intimate empathizer’s position, and steals Mr. Perkins’ thunder. I am no longer caught up in Perkins’ somersault, and the moment I’ve been waiting for—the completed somersault—appears unclimactically in the middle of the strip. There is no catharsis.

The shadow’s disruption of the main story interrupts catharsis in “Skinless Perkins.” Though Maus reads much smoother, there are also constant disruptions along the way. The medium lends itself to disruption, for the coexistence between words and pictures forces the mind first to split in two directions and then to understand the two together. Further, in Maus, the dialogue of Spiegelman’s interactions with his father, the dialogue that occurs in Vladek’s (Spiegelman’s fathers) story of the Holocaust, and the narration that Vladek provides for his story each take its turn at disrupting the flow the reader may get caught in. Vladek is in the middle of his story. Just as we watch him leave his family to fight with the Polish soldiers againstGermany, Vladek says, “And on September 1, 1939, the war came. I was on the front, one of the first to—ACH!”—the tension breaks (39). The story crumbles to pieces as Vladek spills his jar of pills. He has us on the edge of our seats and kerplunk - the story falls off the edge. The dialogue between Spiegelman and his father continues, and so we are dragged on to an entirely different segment of the story. It feels somewhat satisfying, for the flow never really ends—the stories take turns coming in and out of the comic. Thus, we get a mock catharsis. The “seamlessness” that Spiegelman desired holds us in the story; however, our emotions never get the chance to carry us all the way through. The momentum is always shattered, and we are left to reckon with the broken moments on our own, with our own minds. Emotional connections cannot carry us through, and so we begin to read objectively. Our minds are activated, and we have no choice but to meet all points of confusion head on.

We say goodbye to cruise control: we have to take the wheel ourselves.

Words are not the only disruptions along the path. The panels themselves play the same tricks. The eye runs wild as panel after panel flows in the same conforming shape as the one before. Suddenly, like an instructor catching the slowly drooping, hypnotized eyes of a student, the pattern bursts. Wake up! - the story shouts. It knows. The story knows when we are getting too good at our new trick of reading with our eyes open, and the second we get too proud and start to wander, it crushes our egos. Any repetitive pattern is broken before we drift off into the passive passenger’s seat. These moments are signals. The breaks in conformity are road signs, alerting us to something we must not let slip through our minds. Vladek recounts the day he discovered that four Jews, one with whom he personally did business, were hanged in the street as an example to others. The consistent panels tell the news, and then one panel, half the size of the entire page, forms in the middle, partially concealed by another. That one large panel shows four mice hanging and a cat standing guard in the foreground, while the background is filled with blurred sketches of crowds and buildings (83). It isn’t gory. It isn’t graphic. It is telling us: Just in case you merely skimmed through those words, you’re getting a second chance—look and don’t forget—you shouldn’t miss this.

Every time we’re brave enough to let the wheel go, we hit a bump. Our hands race to the wheel and we quickly swerve back—eyes refocused on the lane.

At least with a well-known historical event, we know what we’re dealing with. It isn’t unfamiliar territory. The Spiegelman-designed September 11th cover for The New Yorker seems all too simple. Two tall, powerful silhouettes of the towers lie against a solid, dark background, memorializing the now-demolished landmark. I look at the picture and remember the news videos of the crumbling towers, the crying people. I recall the television series that had mounted that beautiful skyline in its opening credits. I look at the picture as a symbol of our country’s new unity. I remember the towers as a proper mourner—sad, patriotic, and nostalgic. It’s just the same as every other time I’ve been exposed to these two ghosts since the attacks. But I am warned. In writer Anne Bogart’s essay “Stereotype,” she warns, “Because we can walk and talk, we assume that we can act. But an actor actually has to reinvent walking and talking to be able to perform those actions effectively upon the stage” (40). In other words, just because the actor has lived her entire life walking and talking, she must not take such actions lightly. She may know her own walk, but she has to start anew in order to walk and talk appropriately and fairly as a different character than herself. Perhaps the same must be said for the audience. If the actor is reinventing her walk, the audience must not look on her walk as the same one they’ve seen from every other actor playing the same part. Thus, the audience must reinvent its way of looking.

I take a fresh look at the magazine cover. I notice something strange. The north tower and the south tower are switched. And why does the north tower’s needle make a perfect bisection through the “W” of New Yorker? This indeed isn’t the same image as the one in my mind. My old way of looking has clouded my impressions, and I realize that I don’t really know these towers. I have to get to know them all over again.

Perhaps, then, there is no comfort in familiarity with Maus either. The characters, though animals, perform the activities of real people. They react emotionally to the events surrounding them. Yet, it is hard to be empathetic. The representations of emotions—merely simple lines and shadings to imply the basics—are very clear in their meaning. For instance, Anja, Vladek’s future wife, thinks she is speaking inconspicuously (by speaking English) to her brother about Vladek, but when she realizes Vladek, too, knows English, she becomes embarrassed. A black shading of her cheek implies her embarrassment (16). That is all. Somehow, while there is no question that she is embarrassed, I do not relate to her embarrassment. The representation is incredibly familiar, for it is a fairly cliché implication of cartoon embarrassment; but, since it is not an accurate depiction of human embarrassment, it is not a familiar emotion. We, as readers, do not know Anja, and we do not understand her emotions. An existing understanding of embarrassment must be shed in order to become acquainted with the characters as they truly are—strangers.

We are driving very carefully, eyes wide open, and we must remain alone. No one will pick us up and give us a ride—no one will let us follow behind.

Caught in this ride at the hands of Maus and Art Spiegelman, we trust that the territory we are roaming is at least familiar to its owner. The story is backed up with overwhelming Holocaust research; however, we do not get to experience that unshakable foundation. Vladek describes the bunker that he and Anja stayed in while they hid in Srodula. He is shown drawing the picture in his notebook for Art, and then we see the finished product. It is a very rough sketch of the bunker, hidden under a coal bin. Arrows and words indicate each part of the sketch—nothing more than an amateur drawing. In Joshua Brown’s essay “Of Mice and Memory,” Spiegelman explains the importance of research: “I don’t feel comfortable until I know what it is that I’m drawing, where it’s situated....even though what finally represents that space is so modest that somebody can project a whole other space onto what I’ve drawn” (4). Spiegelman has plenty of factual information, but he refuses to claim the Holocaust as an open and shut case. Moments of confusion, a certain vagueness, keep us from claiming too much. In an interview with Andrea Juno, Spiegelman says of his work in comics, “I’m not interested in masking it [confusion], I’m interested in riding it” ( 21).

We can never fully trust the information before us because Spiegelman makes us vulnerable. All previous notions about the “true” story of the Holocaust are crushed in the face of our own uncertainty. Joshua Brown says, “‘Unknowableness’ is the void separating the two generations, and the awareness of the limitations of understanding, of how remembering and telling captures and, yet, fails to capture the experience of the past, permeates Maus” (8). Maus, in other words, is a story that points out its own faults and the inevitable faults of any recaptured story. The book even puts Vladek’s word into question. In the beginning of Maus, Vladek shares stories of his personal relationships. After he is done revealing to Art the trials of his marriage with Anja, he says, “I don’t want you should write this in your book” (23). We already see that Vladek is concerned about what Art will make of his story, and so his story from then on is based on his own discretion. So, who do we trust? Nothing is set in stone. Everything we thought we knew is called into question. Old certainties become pressing questions.

On our own, we realize that we don’t know where we are. All of the familiar landmarks have disappeared. All we have is the road and ourselves.

What happens when every foundation we have ever relied on crumbles? What happens when we are thrown behind the wheel of a speeding vehicle, thrust into an unknown land, left by ourselves, and told that we cannot rely on any of the understandings that have guided us through our lives? When the slate is cleaned, we have no choice but to start fresh. Progressive art tears down all stereotypes, all former means of understanding, and it leaves but one thing to turn to—oneself. People begin to think, unburdened by generations of standards and stereotypes set in their minds, and that allows them to seek change in the weaknesses of the world. Art that seeks to create and control an ideal society loses its audience; for, without those structures of understanding, the art of catharsis and stereotype loses all meaning. The question is, when the ride is over, will we hop on another, or will we slide back under our comfortable, familiar sheets of understanding?

If we are brave, the ride will never stop, and the familiar roads will disappear forever behind us.

Works Cited

Bogart, Anne. “Stereotype.” The World Through Art: The Advanced College Essay. Ed. Darlene A. Forrest, Pat C. Hoy II and Randy Martin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 35-55.

Brecht, Bertolt. “Short Description of a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect.” Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. and Trans. John Willett. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994. 136-40.

Brown, Joshua. “Of Mice and Memory.” Oral History Review. 1988. 15 Apr. 2003.<http://voyager.learntech.com/catalog/maus/indepth/mausessay.html>.

Juno, Andrea. Dangerous Drawings: Interviews with Comix & Graphix Artists. New York: Juno, 1997. 7-31.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. New York: Pantheon , 1986.

Spiegelman, Art. “Skinless Perkins.” Breakdowns: From Maus to Now, an Anthology of Strips by Art Spiegelman.New York: Nostalgia, 1977.

Spiegelman, Art. “Mirrored from the New Yorker.” New Yorker. 24 Sept. 2001: Cover Picture.

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