Long before mankind developed the written language as a form of communicating with each other, people shared ideas and told stories through the use of images and drawings. From the cave paintings etched by early humans to the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt, it is clear to see that the visual medium makes for an effective tool for human communication. As people evolved and languages went on to become further developed, this idea of visual story-telling remained intact.

These days, ‘visual stories’ can still be found for public consumption, and they come in the form of cartoons, comic books or strips, and graphic novels. While many iconic cartoons and comic books have been in circulation for a long time, graphic novels are relatively young when being considered as a distinct genre. In fact, the term ‘graphic novel’ was not exclusively used until around the 1970’s, following the emergence and scholarly study of graphic novels as their own “academic discipline”. Following the commercial success and generally positive reception from readers, many graphic novels have gone on to become film adaptations (ex. 300 by Frank Miller; V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd; and Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons to name a few, as there are so many others worthy of being mentioned!)

In my English 474 class, we have been reading Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, in which Spiegelman combines his cartoonist skills with his knack for story-telling and gives a compelling portrayal of his father’s experiences of living through and surviving the holocaust. Spiegelman switches the narrative past and present throughout the story, so the setting can be seen both in Europe during the 1930s/1940s during the time of the holocaust, and present day (at the time that Spiegelman is writing this novel) in 1960s/1970s New York.

Spiegelman’s retelling of his parents’ experiences before, during, and after the holocaust is delivered in a satirical manner, as human characters are replaced with animal counterparts. The personalities of each animal/character, and interdependent relationships are interesting to analyze. Jews are represented as mice (a small and inferior creature in the animal kingdom); Nazis are shown as cats (stealthy hunters, generally seen as cunning and intelligent animals, and natural hunters/predators of mice); and characters that are living in Europe but are not Jewish are shown as pigs (which is ironic since there are instances where the ‘pigs’ betray the ‘mice’).

In his essay “The Holocaust as Vicarious Past: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and the Afterimages of History” James Young discusses his idea of “vicarious memory” (670) and “memory of the witness’ memory” (i.e. life or memories experienced through someone else). This is the case when considering the relationship that Art has with his father, Vladek. As Art interviews his father and hears the stories of what his family had to suffer through during the time of the holocaust, Art gets a haunting sense of the traumatic experiences his father has been through, and documents them for the reader to also “vicariously” experience.

There are moments throughout Maus that are drastically more effective to read because it was written as a graphic novel, and those moments center around scenes where there is a visual action present that does not need a verbal explanation. For instance, there are parts in the novel where Jewish mice will don pig masks that are tied over their faces, and this lets the reader know that these mice are now wearing disguises. The moment does not require a caption or verbal explanation, and once the moment registers in the reader’s mind, it makes for a brilliant reading experience. Also, due to the book being in a visual and verbal form, Spiegelman is able to include detailed drawings of maps and posters/announcements, which also shows the amount of background research that went into the creation of Maus. Thus through Spiegelman’s drawings (which perfectly emulate human emotions even onto simple cartoon animal faces) and his captions (which you can almost hear being narrated in your head by the heavily accented voice of Vladek), Maus delivers a memorable reading experience and encapsulates what it is that makes a good graphic novel.