Night and Maus
Comparison of Maus and Night
The Holocaust was a traumatic event that most people can’t even wrap their minds around. Libraries are filled with books about the Holocaust because people are both fascinated and horrified to learn the details of what survivors went through. Maus by Art Spiegelman and Night by Elie Wiesel are two highly praised Holocaust books that illustrate the horrors of the Holocaust. Night is a traditional narrative that mainly focuses on Elie’s experiences throughout the holocaust while Maus is a comic book that focuses on the relationship between Art and his father and the generational trauma Art is going through as well as his father’s experiences during the Holocaust. Night and Maus are very different styles of writing but they both focus on family especially the relationship between father and son with influence of the Holocaust.
Although Maus certainly focuses on the Holocaust and the events Vladek went through before the Holocaust and in the death camps, I argue that Maus is centered around something more multifaceted and elusive than just that. From the very beginning of Maus it is clear that Arts main focus is on his complicated relationship with his father, Vladek Spiegelman. Part of that relationship is trying to understand what his father went through during the Holocaust but it goes deeper than just understanding the history of the Holocaust. Art certainly doesn’t try to focus on what led to the Holocaust and the political systems like many Holocaust books do, instead he jumps from past to present showing how his fathers past experiences still effect him today and this book is an attempt to work through those issues.
Johnston says that Arts “focus throughout [Maus] is on the particular details of his father's experiences which are not, in the context of Holocaust literature, remarkable (his father has no new perspective to add to what we already know about his horrible event—his story is, if I may use the expression, an ordinary
The Holocaust was a traumatic event that most people can’t even wrap their minds around. Libraries are filled with books about the Holocaust because people are both fascinated and horrified to learn the details of what survivors went through. Maus by Art Spiegelman and Night by Elie Wiesel are two highly praised Holocaust books that illustrate the horrors of the Holocaust. Night is a traditional narrative that mainly focuses on Elie’s experiences throughout the holocaust while Maus is a comic book that focuses on the relationship between Art and his father and the generational trauma Art is going through as well as his father’s experiences during the Holocaust. Night and Maus are very different styles of writing but they both focus on family especially the relationship between father and son with influence of the Holocaust.
Although Maus certainly focuses on the Holocaust and the events Vladek went through before the Holocaust and in the death camps, I argue that Maus is centered around something more multifaceted and elusive than just that. From the very beginning of Maus it is clear that Arts main focus is on his complicated relationship with his father, Vladek Spiegelman. Part of that relationship is trying to understand what his father went through during the Holocaust but it goes deeper than just understanding the history of the Holocaust. Art certainly doesn’t try to focus on what led to the Holocaust and the political systems like many Holocaust books do, instead he jumps from past to present showing how his fathers past experiences still effect him today and this book is an attempt to work through those issues.
Johnston says that Arts “focus throughout [Maus] is on the particular details of his father's experiences which are not, in the context of Holocaust literature, remarkable (his father has no new perspective to add to what we already know about his horrible event—his story is, if I may use the expression, an ordinary
Cited: Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997 Johnston, Ian. “On Spiegelman 's Maus I and II”. Lecture. Malaspina University-College, Nanimo, BC, Canada. December 28, 2001 Spiegelman, Art. Maus I. New York: Pantheon Books, 1973 Spiegelman, Art. Maus II. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986 Wielsel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 1958