Maus: the transgenerational guilt of surviving

The literary and visual narrative of Maus subverts the conventions attached to the style of comics to create more profound storytelling that attempts to make sense of Vladek's senseless, indefensible past. Along the way, it captures Artie questioning his own sense of identity, as he carries a certain transgenerational burden of being a second-generation survivor. 

pg41 to Maus II

In the last panel of page 41, the first page of Maus II's Chapter 2: Time Flies, we see Artie at his artist’s desk with his arms slumped over it. He is raised above what is a graphic visual of naked, dead mice in a heap over each other, portraying those who died in the Holocaust. Above him is a silhouette of a watch tower, and around him are flies that surround not only the decomposing dead, but surround the living Artie. 

pg45 of Maus I, for reference
Like the panel that we looked at as a class on pg45 of Maus I, this scene contains a conflation of the past and the present. The past is at his feet, literally and figuratively. At the same time, there is a watch tower in the upper right corner of the panel. He is in between two pasts: one that is nearly begging for him to teach their histories, so as not to forget the unforgettable; and the other that acts as a perpetual reminder that he is being watched by the past, creating a hovering pressure for him to portray their experiences just as they were.

The flies that surround both the past and the present allude not only to death but the memories of the Holocaust that continue to haunt Artie. Here, it is important to note the irony of this chapter's title, Time Flies- what an oxymoron it is to incorporate such an idiom into a story that explores atrocities of the past and their implications in the present. 

This all contributes to the feelings of impostorism that Spiegelman develops following the success of his comic, as he carries the guilt of feeling like he has exploited personal tragedy for commercial fame- as seen in his fourth wall break that addresses his audience directly, admitting that "Lately [he's] been feeling depressed". 

In just this frame, the audience can realize Artie's struggles in both commemorating and coming to terms with his father’s past. There is a lacuna that will exist forevermore between Vladek and Artie, which we as the audience can feel: the weight of Artie’s guilt of being able to live, as compared to the understanding that the most his father, Vladek, could do was survive. 

Comments

  1. Halle ChenOctober 9, 2022 at 2:41 PM

    I love the line, "He is in between two pasts: one that is nearly begging for him to teach their histories, so as not to forget the unforgettable; and the other that acts as a perpetual reminder that he is being watched by the past, creating a hovering pressure for him to portray their experiences just as they were" and the analysis you did on this panel. Those flies seem to appear many times throughout the book, like when artie is trying to kill the bugs with the bug spray. I also noticed the parallelism between the panel and, what im assuming is the director, saying "we're ready to shoot" and the watch tower, where the nazis were literally ready to shoot.

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  2. Gautham October 9, 2022 at 7:02 PM

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  3. Gautham October 9, 2022 at 7:03 PM

    I never noticed the silhouette of the watchtower in the first panel, though i did notice the bodies obviously, but it goes to show how detailed the panels are. Spiegelman used every bit of space he has to drive home every metaphor and motif, and I think your examples really prove that. Also, i liked the use of the word “lacuna” to describe the gap between Art and Vladek. i had to look the word up, though.

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