Maus by Art Spiegelman tells the story of intergenerational trauma and the Holocaust through the story of Vladek and Anya, Art’s parents. It breaks middle ground in the polar genres of comics, memoir, and history. Spiegelman uses symbolic imagery and narrative voice to embody the transmission and understanding of trauma within family generations.

The unique method of using animal symbolism and a comic genre presents a distinct perspective on how we recount trauma. Mice and Cats are used to represent Jews and Nazis respectively. On a manifest level, Spiegelman used symbolism to evade censorship charges but personally, I believe this attests to the paradigm of the game of cat and mouse. As the archetypal never-ending chase, Spiegelman may have used this imagery to attest to humankind’s inevitable return to violence and war. In the wake of the Holocaust, the world was ravaged by the cruelties that were revealed and proclaimed ‘never-again.’ Yet, as we know modern genocide persists in a variety of ways. Further, the delineation of prey and hunter imagery adds to the characterization of the victimized Jews and preying Nazis in the novel. And, the lack of distinction between the mice or Nazis implies the universality of the struggle experienced by Vladek thereby widening the story to become the story of all Jews. Thus, the use of cat and mouse imagery underlines the implicit message of the threat of a return to war and genocide and serves as a commentary on the threat of racial power dynamics.

Secondly, Maus explores the long term effects of trauma through the structural construction of Maus’ storyline. The use of dual first-person narratives of Artie and his father shows the consequential intergenerational effects of trauma as it shows the discord within their relationship. Further, Spiegelman’s construction moves between the past and the present to show how Vladek’s trauma affected Art’s childhood and the resultant disconnect between them in the present. The use of the first person also establishes a closer intimacy with the characters for the reader which is emphasized by the visual representation of comics. This allows the reader to empathize with the characters in two dimensions. In this way, Spiegelman explores the way trauma is retold and experienced by each generation.

Conclusively, the imagery and narrative structure of the novel utilizes realism and surrealism by communicating the pain of trauma through the symbolism of the hunted and the hunter.