Animals In Maus Essay

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Animals are often used to depict humans in books because they possess features that emulate human interaction and behavior. In the graphic novel Maus, Art Spiegelman depicts Germans as cats and Jews as mice, which model the cat and mouse relationship of predator and prey. This decision to represent humans as animals reveal to the readers that the Germans were cruel, but they were “non-discriminately” racist. These ideas also tell us that there is more to the Holocaust than the killing of millions of people; it includes divisions within communities and separation of family and friends. It also shows that under desperate circumstances, people will act selfishly and can sacrifice others for an improvement of their lives. The Holocaust left many …show more content…
On page 113 of Volume I of the graphic novel, a mouse discovers the hiding place of Vladek and his family. Although his family originally suspect that he is a spy, they eventually sympathize and leave him with some food for his “family”. However, the rat betrays them by informing the Germans of their location, who take Vladek’s family to an area of captive mice. The snitching rat’s action show how much the Holocaust changed the community from caring and altruistic to selfish and dishonest. This is very similar to a predator and prey analogy, which is also emphasized by the choice of animals. The Jews, or mice, are forced to go into hiding when the cats (Germans) come or they will be caught and exiled. The snitch rat’s actions are similar to a mouse distracting a cat by offering more mice elsewhere in order to escape danger. In order to escape captivity, the mouse turns in Vladek’s family in order for him to survive. In addition, how the cats view the mice represent how the Germans view the Jews. Cats see mice as inferior prey; it doesn’t matter how large they are, mice are still mice. This made the Germans “indiscriminately racist” because as long as they perceive someone as Jew, it didn’t matter how rich they were. In the end, they were still a
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