Vladek Spiegelman Maus Quotes

A Distressed Dad Derived from the Damages of War Art Spiegelman’s Maus expounds on the poignant story of Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, and his traumatic experience as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust in World War II. Vladek is a complex individual whose arduous past explains his difficult behaviour in the present. His son, Artie, renders him as a very meticulous, demanding, critical and anxious character. Vladek’s involvement in the Holocaust through his unwavering pursuit for survival is what makes him quite the tangled personality. His encounters with traumatic events such as death and loss of family members and friends from the war greatly explain his complexity. As readers, we are meant to sympathise with him and understand why his painful past is a notable reason for his convoluted character in the present.
His family in the present is under the pressure of trauma from the war. This trauma includes physical, emotional and psychological traumas. Vladek has unresolved feelings about the Holocaust and this causes him to become a complex man with many difficult behavioural traits. He is very particular when it comes to taking his medication and gets overly anxious about little things, such as making sure his son is given a wooden hanger for his coat. “A wire hanger you give him! I haven’t seen Artie in almost two years – we have plenty [of] wooden hangers” (Spiegelman I, 11). Vladek gets angry over something as trivial as the type of hanger his son has for his coat, and this demonstrates his picky behaviour in the present. Because Vladek did not always have the privilege of being well taken care of during the war, he becomes very particular about the way he treats others, even if it is through the slightest of things like giving a wooden coat hanger to his