How Does Spiegelman Use Animal Metaphor In Maus

Good morning to fellow classmates. Today I will be talking about the usage of the animal metaphor to examine race in Maus. The metaphor of Jews as mice is taken directly from Nazi propaganda, which portrayed the Jews as a kind of vermin to be exterminated. The purpose of using this metaphor is therefore to undermine the Nazi propaganda by ironically going with it. So the Jews are depicted as mice, but Spiegelman shows the humanity of the mice – their innocence, their vulnerability, their tragic situation. Using different animals as different races also highlights the total separation of the different racial communities in society. While this may reflect the reality of the situation back then in Poland, the danger with using this metaphor is that it seems to inadvertently support the racist idea that there is a fundamental separation between the races. In Maus, Spiegelman tries to avoid these negative racial connotations of the mouse metaphor, while using the positive connotations of the metaphor to emphasize the humanity of the Jews.
Spiegelman’s use anthropomorphic animals draws on an old tradition.
The idea behind it seems to be that certain animals are seen to be symbolic of certain human traits. By using animals, it makes us question what it is to be human, but it also allows iconic identification with the characters. The novel has not made the topic of Holocaust representation any less sensitive and opinions are as varied as the people presenting them. Some people have criticized Spiegelman's animal work as (literally) dehumanizing the Holocaust, while some critics in Germany of these two works have said the animal metaphors made an incomprehensible subject more understandable. The novel is problematic, since comics' strengths do not lie in documentation and realism, rather in interpretation, reduction and
abstraction. The animal metaphor emphasizes the separation of the different racial groups in the text. Thus, social division in Poland is shown through this technique. In the novel, the Jews and the Polish do not mix because of the racial differences, unless the poles are working as housekeepers in the houses of the wealthier Jews. On page 37 in Maus 1, readers can see that Janina, Richieu’s caretaker, tells Richieu that Vladek is back from work, and Vladek tells Anja there was another riot. The riot was forcing the Jews to move out from their houses and the police didn’t do anything to stop it. Janina was upset that Anja blamed the poles about not stopping the Nazi so that the Jews can keep on living in their homes. Despite this separation of the races on page 34 and 35 of Maus 1, Spiegelman illustrates that there’s a possibility of a peaceable kingdom of different animals (races) living side by side. This is when Anja was sent to for her rehabilitation. In Maus two, Vladek has a Jewish mouse friend who is married to a cat German. The children of them are being drawn as mouse but they have stripes as a cat, which is shown on page 291 of Maus. When Spiegelman was drawing this, he had a hard time with visualizing Hilter’s racist thinking by casting groups of different species. Hitler said that different species could not reproduce; this means that a Jew and a German cannot be married to each other. The mouse metaphor also emphasizes the common situation of the Jews, and their sense of having a shared situation. However, this sense of connection is continually challenged by the struggle for individual survival. In the novel, Vladek must hide himself on a Polish soldier train during German inspection, and therefore must wear the pig mask while on the train. The pig mask is made a mask in the story in order to show that the characters are being someone other than themselves. In page 157 in Maus 1, the readers can see that the Jews are trying to get out from Poland and they want to get to Hungary. To do that they have to disguise themselves as poles. When the Nazi’s solders unveil the masks, their true identity being reveal. In chapter six in Maus 1, from page 138 onwards the readers can see that, in order the Jews to survive, the have to wear masks and pretend to be polish so that they can survive. The mask that the people are wearing shows how the racial identity is just a matter of superficial appearance, but it also shows the precariousness of the Jews’ safety in occupied Poland. The depiction different races as different kinds of animals have been criticized as over-simplistic and as unintentionally promoting ethnic stereotypes. In order to overcome this connotation of the metaphor, Spiegelmen conveys that the characters in the novel are using masks because he wants to illustrate that underneath the masks we are all essentially the same. In chapter six in the first novel, the Jews use masks as a disguise so that the Jews have a chance of not being detected. That easily deceives the poles and the poles help the Jews who are disguise as Poles. In the second novel, Spiegelmen started reaching for the absurd to make sure one didn’t take the ruling metaphor at, “face” value. (2nd novel PG.) Spiegelman gradually deconstructs the animal metaphor throughout the book, especially in the second volume, showing where the lines cannot be drawn between races of humans. Another way that Spiegelman corrects the sense of the races, as different species is to distinguish the humanoid animals from real animals. The fact that Vladek and Anja are mice but in the picture there’s a real mice. We just don’t +notice this anymore because they act more like a human being since they have gestures where as a real mouse doesn’t have that. On page 147 from Maus 1, Anja see a rat at the cellar at Mrs. Motinowa’s house. It is ironic that Anja is afraid of a rat because she is being portrayed as a mouse in the novel. Spiegelmen wanted to show that even though Vladek and Anja are being portrayed as mice in the novel but the readers do not see them as mice. The readers see them as human beings. But from the Nazi’s point of view, Vladek and Anja are seen as mice because the Nazi’s sees the Jews as mice because they think that they are vermin and pests not as a human being. We can see the humanity in them when they depicted as mice acts as a further condemnation of the brutality of the Nazi’s. Maus plays off the racial stereotypes, and even stereotypical thinking in general, by indicating where the allegory falls apart. The mice are not universally good, nor are the pigs universally good or bad. Mice can pass for other animals by wearing pig masks or cat masks. The allegory falls apart at times when the animal-humans deal with actual animals. In conclusion, Spiegelman uses the extended metaphor to create his graphic novel. In the novel, he tries to destabilize the Nazi propaganda by ironically going with it.