Maus Literary Analysis

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One of Art’s techniques in Maus other than using animals was to make the book so that it wasn’t too violent. For instance, in the book, you still see the Germans holding the leg along with a large blood splatter against the wall (Book I, pg 41), however, Art did not draw the head. It was clear that Art had the astonishing ability to work a piece of history that actually existed into a style of writing, comic books, which are typically used to depict fiction or unrealistic ideas. A prevalent feature in Maus would be Art’s utilization of animals to represent characters. Instead of illustrating hundreds of intricately unique characters, Art resorts to using animals to be able to tell the difference between the nationalities and races, however, characters were distinguished further through the clothing that they wore. Since mice are generally considered pests, the Jewish could be interpreted as being so in the story, considering the fact that anti-Semites believed that Jews were the pests of the human race. A comparison that can be made between the mice and the Jewish would be that both struggled for food and life in a similar way to one another. There are quite ironic references made by Art’s father as he tells his tale: “Like wild animals they would fight until there was blood. You can’t know what it is to be hungry.” (Book II, pg 81) …show more content…
Some racial stereotypes are also prominent, for example, the Polish and American characters finding their way of being portrayed as pigs and dogs. Regardless of their nationality, all Jews in the story are shown as mice. In the story, characters go so far as being depicted as creatures like moths, not being limited to just
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